Stars we lost in 2020

Here's a list of celebrities who have died in 2020.

FILE - In this 1965 file photo, Dawn Wells, center, poses with fellow cast members of "Gilligan's Island," Bob Denver and Alan Hale Jr., in Los Angeles. Wells, who played the wholesome Mary Ann on the 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," has died. Her publicist says Wells died early Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020, in Los Angeles, of causes related to COVID-19. (AP Photo/File)

'Gilligan's Island' star Dawn Wells dies, COVID-19 cited

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dawn Wells, who played the wholesome Mary Ann among a misfit band of shipwrecked castaways on the 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," died Wednesday of causes related to COVID-19, her publicist said. She was 82.

Wells died peacefully at a residential facility in Los Angeles, publicist Harlan Boll said. "There is so much more to Dawn Wells" than the "Gilligan's Island" character that brought her fame, Boll said in a statement.

Besides TV, film and stage acting credits, her other real-life roles included teacher, motivational speaker and conservationist, Boll said.

Tina Louise, 86, who played Ginger the movie star, is the last surviving member of a cast that included Bob Denver as the title character; Alan Hale Jr. as the Skipper; Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer as wealthy passengers Thurston and Lovey Howell, and Russell Johnson, known as the Professor.

"I will always remember her kindness to me," Louise said in a statement. "We shared in creating a cultural landmark that has continued to bring comfort and smiles to people during this difficult time. I hope that people will remember her the way that I do — always with a smile on her face."

"Oh, this so sad. Bon voyage, Mary Ann," Jane Lynch posted on Twitter.

"Two and a Half Men" star Jon Cryer tweeted that it was a "thrill" to meet Wells when she visited the show, adding, "She could not have been more lovely and gracious."

Wells, a native of Reno, Nevada, represented her state in the 1959 Miss America pageant and quickly pivoted to an acting career. Her early TV roles were on shows including "77 Sunset Strip," "Maverick" and "Bonanza."

Then came "Gilligan's Island," a goofy, good-natured comedy that aired from 1964-67 that became an unlikely but indelible part of popular culture. Wells' comely but innocent Mary Ann complemented Louise's worldly Ginger, and both became innocuous '60s TV versions of sex symbols.

Wells' wardrobe included a gingham dress and shorts that modestly covered her belly button, with both costumes on display in Los Angeles at The Hollywood Museum.

TV movies spinoffs from the series followed, including 1978's "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," but Wells also moved on to other TV guest roles and films including the 2002 vacuum cleaner salesman comedy "Super Sucker" with Jeff Daniels. She starred on stage in dozens of plays, including "Chapter Two" and "The Odd Couple."

In 2013, she was honored by for her work with a Tennessee-based refuge, The Elephant Sanctuary.

To mark the 50th anniversary of "Gilligan's Island." Dawn wrote "A Guide To Life: What Would Mary Ann Do?" with observations about her character and the cultural changes that took place while she was stranded.

Two years ago, a friend launched a GoFundMe drive to help cover medical and other costs for Wells, although she protested she didn't need the assistance. She did end up acknowledging her need and accepted more than $180,000 in donations.

"Wow! I am amazed at the kindness and affection I have received" in response to the fundraising drive, Wells said in a social media post at the time. She said a "dear friend" undertook it after a frank conversation.

She recounted musing to him, "'Where did the time go? I don't know how this happened. I thought I was taking all the proper steps to ensure my golden years. Now, here I am, no family, no husband, no kids and no money.'"

Wells added in the post that she was grateful to her supportive fans and that her outlook remained positive.

Dawn is survived by her stepsister, Weslee Wells, Boll said.

In this Oct. 4, 2000, file photo, Charley Pride performs during his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame at the Country Music Association Awards show at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. Pride, the son of sharecroppers in Mississippi and became one of country music's biggest stars and the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, has died at age 86. Pride died Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, in Dallas of complications from Covid-19, according to Jeremy Westby of the public relations firm 2911 Media. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Charley Pride, a country music Black superstar, dies at 86

NEW YORK (AP) — Charley Pride, one of country music's first Black superstar whose rich baritone on such hits as "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" helped sell millions of records and made him the first Black member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, has died. He was 86.

Pride died Saturday in Dallas of complications from Covid-19, according to Jeremy Westby of the public relations firm 2911 Media.

"I'm so heartbroken that one of my dearest and oldest friends, Charley Pride, has passed away. It's even worse to know that he passed away from COVID-19. What a horrible, horrible virus. Charley, we will always love you," Dolly Parton tweeted.

Pride released dozens of albums and sold more than 25 million records during a career that began in the mid-1960s. Hits besides "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" in 1971 included "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone," "Burgers and Fries," "Mountain of Love," and "Someone Loves You Honey."

He had three Grammy Awards, more than 30 No. 1 hits between 1969 and 1984, won the Country Music Association's Top Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year awards in 1972 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. He won the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award last month by the Country Music Association.

"He destroyed barriers and did things that no one had ever done," said Darius Rucker on Twitter. "Heaven just got one of the finest people I know." Tanya Tucker tweeted "I'm just so thankful I got to sing a song with him." Billy Ray Cyrus called him a "gentleman," "legend" and a "true trailblazer."

The Smithsonian in Washington acquired memorabilia from Pride, including a pair of boots and one of his guitars, for the the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Ronnie Milsap called him a "pioneer" and said that without his encouragement, Milsap might never gone to Nashville. "To hear this news tears out a piece of my heart," he said in a statement.

Other Black country stars came before Pride, namely DeFord Bailey, who was an Grand Ole Opry member between 1927 and 1941. But until the early 1990s, when Cleve Francis came along, Pride was the only Black country singer signed to a major label. In 1993, he joined the Opry cast in Nashville.

"They used to ask me how it feels to be the `first colored country singer,'" he told The Dallas Morning News in 1992. "Then it was `first Negro country singer;' then `first black country singer.' Now I'm the `first African-American country singer.' That's about the only thing that's changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it `skin hangups' — it's a disease."

Pride was raised in Sledge, Mississippi, the son of a sharecropper. He had seven brothers and three sisters.

In 2008 while accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the Mississippi Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts, Pride said he never focused on race.

"My older sister one time said, 'Why are you singing THEIR music?'" Pride said. "But we all understand what the y'all-and-us-syndrome has been. See, I never as an individual accepted that, and I truly believe that's why I am where I am today."

As a young man before launching his singing career, he was a pitcher and outfielder in the Negro American League with the Memphis Red Sox and in the Pioneer League in Montana.

After playing minor league baseball a couple of years, he ended up in Helena, Montana, where he worked in a zinc smelting plant by day and played country music in nightclubs at night.

Pride was part of the Texas Rangers' ownership group for the last 10 years and the team will fly the flags at half-staff at Globe Life Field and Globe Life Park on Sunday and Monday in his memory.

"The Texas Rangers join the country music world in mourning the loss of Charley Pride. While Mr. Pride was a legendary performer who entertained millions of fans in the United States and around the world, we will remember him as a true friend to this franchise," the team said in a statement.

After a tryout with the New York Mets, Pride visited Nashville and broke into country music when Chet Atkins, head of RCA Records, heard two of his demo tapes and signed him.

To ensure that Pride was judged on his music and not his race, his first few singles were sent to radio stations without a publicity photo. After his identity became known, a few country radio stations refused to play his music.

For the most part, though, Pride said he was well received. Early in his career, he would put white audiences at ease when he joked about his "permanent tan."

"Music is the greatest communicator on the planet Earth," he said in 1992. "Once people heard the sincerity in my voice and heard me project and watched my delivery, it just dissipated any apprehension or bad feeling they might have had."

Throughout his career, he sang positive songs instead of sad ones often associated with country music.

"Music is a beautiful way of expressing oneself and I truly believe music should not be taken as a protest," he told The Associated Press in 1985. "You can go too far in anything — singing, acting, whatever — and become politicized to the point you cease to be an entertainer."

In 1994, he wrote his autobiography, "Pride: The Charley Pride Story," in which he disclosed he was mildly manic depressive. He had surgery in 1997 to remove a tumor from his right vocal cord.

"Charley Pride was a trail blazer whose remarkable voice & generous spirit broke down barriers in country music just as his hero Jackie Robinson had in baseball," tweeted director and producer Ken Burns.

He received the Living Legend award from The Nashville Network/Music City News, recognizing 30 years of achievement, in 1997.

"I'd like to be remembered as a good person who tried to be a good entertainer and made people happy, was a good American who paid his taxes and made a good living," he said in 1985. "I tried to do my best and contribute my part."

He is survived by his wife, Rozene, whom he married in 1956; three children, Kraig, Dion and Angela; and several grandchildren.

FILE - In this Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, file photo, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Yeager talks to members of the media following a re-enactment flight commemorating his breaking of the sound barrier 65 years earlier, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier, died Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, at age 97. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)

Chuck Yeager, 1st to break sound barrier, dies at 97

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles "Chuck" Yeager, the World War II fighter pilot ace and quintessential test pilot who showed he had the "right stuff" when in 1947 he became the first person to fly faster than sound, has died. He was 97.

Yeager died Monday, his wife, Victoria Yeager, said on his Twitter account. "It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America's greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever."

Yeager's death is "a tremendous loss to our nation," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

"Gen. Yeager's pioneering and innovative spirit advanced America's abilities in the sky and set our nation's dreams soaring into the jet age and the space age. He said, 'You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done,'" Bridenstine said.

"In an age of media-made heroes, he is the real deal," Edwards Air Force Base historian Jim Young said in August 2006 at the unveiling of a bronze statue of Yeager.

He was "the most righteous of all those with the right stuff," said Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke, commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards.

Yeager, from a small town in the hills of West Virginia, flew for more than 60 years, including piloting an X-15 to near 1,000 mph (1,609 kph) at Edwards in October 2002 at age 79.

"Living to a ripe old age is not an end in itself. The trick is to enjoy the years remaining," he said in "Yeager: An Autobiography."

"I haven't yet done everything, but by the time I'm finished, I won't have missed much," he wrote. "If I auger in (crash) tomorrow, it won't be with a frown on my face. I've had a ball."

On Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager, then a 24-year-old captain, pushed an orange, bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane past 660 mph to break the sound barrier, at the time a daunting aviation milestone.

"Sure, I was apprehensive," he said in 1968. "When you're fooling around with something you don't know much about, there has to be apprehension. But you don't let that affect your job."

The modest Yeager said in 1947 he could have gone even faster had the plane carried more fuel. He said the ride "was nice, just like riding fast in a car."

Yeager nicknamed the rocket plane, and all his other aircraft, "Glamorous Glennis" for his wife, who died in 1990.

Yeager's feat was kept top secret for about a year when the world thought the British had broken the sound barrier first.

"It wasn't a matter of not having airplanes that would fly at speeds like this. It was a matter of keeping them from falling apart," Yeager said.

Sixty-five years later to the minute, on Oct. 14, 2012, Yeager commemorated the feat, flying in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle as it broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) above California's Mojave Desert.

His exploits were told in Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff," and the 1983 film it inspired.

Yeager was born Feb. 23, 1923, in Myra, a tiny community on the Mud River deep in an Appalachian hollow about 40 miles southwest of Charleston. The family later moved to Hamlin, the county seat. His father was an oil and gas driller and a farmer.

"What really strikes me looking over all those years is how lucky I was, how lucky, for example, to have been born in 1923 and not 1963 so that I came of age just as aviation itself was entering the modern era," Yeager said in a December 1985 speech at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

"I was just a lucky kid who caught the right ride," he said.

Yeager enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from high school in 1941. He later regretted that his lack of a college education prevented him from becoming an astronaut.

He started off as an aircraft mechanic and, despite becoming severely airsick during his first airplane ride, signed up for a program that allowed enlisted men to become pilots.

Yeager shot down 13 German planes on 64 missions during World War II, including five on a single mission. He was once shot down over German-held France but escaped with the help of French partisans.

After World War II, he became a test pilot beginning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Among the flights he made after breaking the sound barrier was one on Dec. 12. 1953, when he flew an X-1A to a record of more than 1,600 mph. He said he had gotten up at dawn that day and went hunting, bagging a goose before his flight. That night, he said, his family ate the goose for dinner.

He returned to combat during the Vietnam War, flying several missions a month in twin-engine B-57 Canberras making bombing and strafing runs over South Vietnam.

Yeager also commanded Air Force fighter squadrons and wings, and the Aerospace Research Pilot School for military astronauts.

"I've flown 341 types of military planes in every country in the world and logged about 18,000 hours," he said in an interview in the January 2009 issue of Men's Journal. "It might sound funny, but I've never owned an airplane in my life. If you're willing to bleed, Uncle Sam will give you all the planes you want."

When Yeager left Hamlin, he was already known as a daredevil. On later visits, he often buzzed the town.

"I live just down the street from his mother," said Gene Brewer, retired publisher of the weekly Lincoln Journal. "One day I climbed up on my roof with my 8 mm camera when he flew overhead. I thought he was going to take me off the roof. You can see the treetops in the bottom of the pictures."

Yeager flew an F-80 under a Charleston bridge at 450 mph on Oct. 10, 1948, according to newspaper accounts. When he was asked to repeat the feat for photographers, Yeager replied: "You should never strafe the same place twice 'cause the gunners will be waiting for you."

Yeager never forgot his roots and West Virginia named bridges, schools and Charleston's airport after him.

"My beginnings back in West Virginia tell who I am to this day," Yeager wrote. "My accomplishments as a test pilot tell more about luck, happenstance and a person's destiny. But the guy who broke the sound barrier was the kid who swam the Mud River with a swiped watermelon or shot the head off a squirrel before going to school."

Yeager was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart. President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Collier air trophy in December 1948 for his breaking the sound barrier. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.

Yeager retired from the Air Force in 1975 and moved to a ranch in Cedar Ridge in Northern California where he continued working as a consultant to the Air Force and Northrop Corp. and became well known to younger generations as a television pitchman for automotive parts and heat pumps.

He married Glennis Dickhouse of Oroville, California, on Feb. 26, 1945. She died of ovarian cancer in December 1990. They had four children: Donald, Michael, Sharon and Susan.

Yeager married 45-year-old Victoria Scott D'Angelo in 2003.

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2009 file photo, actor David Lander arrives at The National Multiple Sclerosis Society's 35th Annual Dinner of Champions in Los Angeles. Actor David L. Lander, who played the character of Squiggy on the popular ABC comedy "Laverne & Shirley," has died Friday, Dec. 4, 2020 after a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis, his wife said. He was 73. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

David Lander, 'Squiggy' on 'Laverne & Shirley,' dies at 73

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actor David L. Lander, who played the character of Squiggy on the popular ABC comedy "Laverne & Shirley," has died after a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis, his wife said. He was 73.

Lander died Friday in Los Angeles, surrounded by his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Kathy Fields Lander said in an email Saturday to the Associated Press.

"It was very peaceful," Lander said. "He had a tough battle with MS for 37 years and he persevered like no one I have ever seen, and it taught me a great deal about the important things of life."

Lander had a longtime comedic partnership with Michael McKean, whom he met at Carnegie Mellon University. Together they created the characters of Lenny and Squiggy that they would play on the show, which ran from 1976 to 1983. Lenny and Squiggy — or Lenny Kosnowski and Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman — were friends and upstairs neighbors of Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams), bottle-cappers in 1950s Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

McKean tweeted a photo in tribute to Lander on Saturday of the two actors in the early days.

Lander is survived by his wife and a daughter, Natalie Lander.

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 1960, file photo, Rafer Johnson of Kingsburg, Calif., is flanked by runners-up, Chuan-Kwang Yang, left, of Taiwan, and Vasily Kuznetsov of Russia, as they join in three-way handshake after receiving medals for the decathlon event of the Olympics in Rome, Italy. Rafer Johnson, who won the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics and helped subdue Robert F. Kennedy's assassin in 1968, died Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. He was 86. He died at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, according to family friend Michael Roth. (AP Photo)

Rafer Johnson, 1960 Olympic decathlon champion, dies at 86

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rafer Johnson, who won the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics and helped subdue Robert F. Kennedy's assassin in 1968, died Wednesday. He was 86.

He died at his home in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, according to family friend Michael Roth. No cause of death was announced.

Johnson was among the world's greatest athletes from 1955 through his Olympic triumph in 1960, winning a national decathlon championship in 1956 and a silver medal at the Melbourne Olympics that same year.

His Olympic career included carrying the U.S. flag at the 1960 Games and lighting the torch at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to open the 1984 Games. Johnson set world records in the decathlon three different times amid a fierce rivalry with his UCLA teammate C.K. Yang of Taiwan and Vasily Kuznetsov of the former Soviet Union.

Johnson won a gold medal at the Pan American Games in 1955 while competing in just his fourth decathlon. At a welcome home meet afterward in Kingsburg, California, he set his first world record, breaking the mark of two-time Olympic champion and his childhood hero Bob Mathias.

On June 5, 1968, Johnson was working on Kennedy's presidential campaign when the Democratic candidate was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Johnson joined former NFL star Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton in apprehending Sirhan Sirhan moments after he shot Kennedy, who died the next day.

"I knew he did everything he could to take care of Uncle Bobby at his most vulnerable moment," Kennedy's niece, Maria Shriver, said by phone. "His devotion to Uncle Bobby was pure and real. He had protected his friend. Even after Uncle Bobby's death he stayed close."

Johnson later called the assassination "one of the most devastating moments in my life."

Born Rafer Lewis Johnson on Aug. 18, 1934, in Hillsboro, Texas, he moved to California in 1945 with his family, including his brother Jim, a future NFL Hall of Fame inductee. Although some sources cite Johnson's birth year as 1935, the family has said that is incorrect.

They eventually settled in Kingsburg, near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. It was less than 25 miles from Tulare, the hometown of Mathias, who would win the decathlon at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics and prove an early inspiration to Johnson.

Johnson was a standout student and played football, basketball, baseball and track and field at Kingsburg Joint Union High. At 6-foot-3 and 200-plus pounds, he looked more like a linebacker than a track and field athlete.

During his junior year of high school, Johnson's coach took him to Tulare to watch Mathias compete in a decathlon, an experience Johnson later said spurred him to take up the grueling 10-event sport.

As a freshman at UCLA, where he received academic and athletic scholarships, Johnson won gold at the the 1955 Pan Am Games, and set a world record of 7,985 points.

After winning the national decathlon championship in 1956, Johnson was the favorite for the Olympics in Melbourne, but pulled a stomach muscle and strained a knee while training. He was forced to withdraw from the long jump, for which he had also qualified, but tried to gut out the decathlon.

Johnson's teammate Milt Campbell, a virtual unknown, gave the performance of his life, finishing with 7,937 points to win gold, 350 ahead of Johnson.

It was the last time Johnson would ever come in second.

Johnson, Yang, and Kuznetzov had their way with the record books between the 1956 and 1960 Olympics.

Kuznetzov, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist who the Soviets called their "man of steel," broke Johnson's world record in May 1958 with 8,016 points.

Later that year at a U.S.-Soviet dual meet in Moscow, Johnson beat Kuznetzov by 405 points and reclaimed the world record with 8,302 points. Johnson won over the Soviet audience with his gutsy performance in front of what had been a hostile crowd.

A car accident and subsequent back injury kept Johnson out of competition during 1959, but he was healthy again for the Olympics in 1960.

Yang was his primary competition in Rome. Yang won six of the first nine events, but Johnson led by 66 points going into the 1,500 meters, the decathlon's final event.

Johnson had to finish within 10 seconds of Yang, which was no small feat as Yang was much stronger running at distance than Johnson.

Johnson finished just 1.2 seconds and six yards behind Yang to win the gold. Yang earned silver and Kuznetsov took bronze.

At UCLA, Johnson played basketball for coach John Wooden, becoming a starter on the 1958-59 team. In 1958, he was elected student body president, the third Black to hold the office in school history.

"He stood for what he believed in and he did it in a very classy way with grace and dignity," Olympic champion swimmer Janet Evans said by phone.

Evans last saw Johnson, who attended her 2004 wedding, at a luncheon in his honor in May 2019.

"We were all there to fete him and he just didn't want to be in the spotlight," she said. "That was one of the things I loved about him. He didn't want credit."

Johnson retired from competition after the Rome Olympics. He began acting in movies, including appearances in "Wild in the Country" with Elvis Presley, "None But the Brave" with Frank Sinatra and the 1989 James Bond film "License to Kill." He worked briefly as a TV sportscaster before becoming a vice president at Continental Telephone in 1971.

In 1984 Johnson lit the Olympic flame for the Los Angeles Games. He took the torch from Gina Hemphill, granddaughter of Olympic great Jesse Owens, who ran it into the Coliseum.

"Standing there and looking out, I remember thinking 'I wish I had a camera,'" Johnson said. "My hair was standing straight up on my arm. Words really seem inadequate."

Throughout his life, Johnson was widely known for his humanitarian efforts.

He served on the organizing committee of the first Special Olympics in Chicago in 1968, working with founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Johnson founded California Special Olympics the following year at a time when positive role models for the intellectually and physically disabled were rare.

"Rafer really paved the path for many of us to understand the responsibilities that come with being a successful athlete and the number of lives you can impact and change," Evans said.

Maria Shriver recalled meeting Johnson for the first time at age 10 or 11 through her mother Eunice.

"He and I joked that I've been in love with him ever since," she said. "He really was an extraordinary man, such a loving, gracious, elegant, humble man who handled his success in such a beautiful way and stayed so true to himself throughout his life."

Peter Ueberroth, who chose Johnson to light the Olympic torch in 1984, called him "just one great person, a marvelous human being."

Johnson worked for the Peace Corps, March of Dimes, Muscular Dystrophy Association and American Red Cross. In 2016, he received the UCLA Medal, the university's highest award for extraordinary accomplishments. The school's track is named for Johnson and his wife Betsy.

His children, Jenny Johnson Jordan and Josh Johnson, were athletes themselves. Jenny was a beach volleyball player who competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is on the coaching staff of UCLA's beach volleyball team. Josh competed in javelin at UCLA, where he was an All-American.

Besides his wife of 49 years and children, he is survived by son-in-law Kevin Jordan and four grandchildren.

FILE - This May 5, 2019, file photo shows Alex Trebek gestures while presenting an award at the 46th annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Pasadena, Calif. Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek died Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020, after battling pancreatic cancer for nearly two years. Trebek died at home with family and friends surrounding him, "Jeopardy!" studio Sony said in a statement. Trebek presided over the beloved quiz show for more than 30 years. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

Trebek remembered for grace that elevated him above TV host

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alex Trebek never pretended to have all the answers, but the "Jeopardy!" host became an inspiration and solace to Americans who otherwise are at odds with each other.

He looked and sounded the part of a senior statesman, impeccably suited and groomed and with an authoritative voice any politician would covet. He commanded his turf — the quiz show's stage — but refused to overshadow its brainy contestants.

And when he faced the challenge of pancreatic cancer, which claimed his life Sunday at age 80, he was honest, optimistic and graceful. Trebek died at his Los Angeles home, surrounded by family and friends, "Jeopardy!" studio Sony said.

The Canadian-born host made a point of informing fans about his health directly, in a series of brief online videos. He faced the camera and spoke in a calm, even tone as he revealed his illness and hope for a cure in the first message, posted in March 2019.

"Now normally, the prognosis for this is not very encouraging, but I'm going to fight this and I'm going to keep working," Trebek said, even managing a wisecrack: He had to beat the disease because his "Jeopardy!" contract had three more years to run.

Trebek's death came less than four months after that of civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, also of advanced pancreatic cancer and at age 80. Trebek had offered him words of encouragement last January.

In a memoir published this year, "The Answer Is ... Reflections on My Life," Trebek suggested that he's known but not celebrated, and compared himself to a visiting relative who TV viewers find "comforting and reassuring as opposed to being impressed by me."

That was contradicted Sunday by the messages of grief and respect from former contestants, celebrities and the wider public that quickly followed news of his loss.

"Alex wasn't just the best ever at what he did. He was also a lovely and deeply decent man, and I'm grateful for every minute I got to spend with him," tweeted "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings. "Thinking today about his family and his Jeopardy! family — which, in a way, included millions of us."

"It was one of the great privileges of my life to spend time with this courageous man while he fought the battle of his life. You will never be replaced in our hearts, Alex," James Holzhauer, another "Jeopardy!" star, posted on Twitter.

Recent winner Burt Thakur tweeted that he was "overwhelmed with emotion." When he appeared on Friday's show, Thakur recounted learning English diction as a child from watching Trebek on "Jeopardy!" with his grandfather.

The program tapes weeks of shows in advance, and the remaining episodes with Trebek will air through Dec. 25, a Sony spokeswoman said.

"Jeopardy!" bills itself as "America's favorite quiz show" and captivated the public with a unique format in which contestants were told the answers and had to provide the questions on a variety of subjects, including movies, politics, history and popular culture.

They would answer by saying "What is ... ?" or "Who is .... ?"

Trebek, who became its host in 1984, was a master of the format, engaging in friendly banter with contestants, appearing genuinely pleased when they answered correctly and, at the same time, moving the game along in a brisk no-nonsense fashion whenever people struggled for answers.

"I try not to take myself too seriously," he told an interviewer in 2004. "I don't want to come off as a pompous ass and indicate that I know everything when I don't."

The show was the brainstorm of Julann Griffin, wife of the late talk show host-entrepreneur Merv Griffin, who said she suggested to him one day that he create a game show where people were given the answers.

"Jeopardy!" debuted on NBC in 1964 with Art Fleming as emcee and was an immediate hit. It lasted until 1975, then was revived in syndication with Trebek.

Long identified by a full head of hair and trim mustache (though in 2001 he startled viewers by shaving his mustache, "completely on a whim"), Trebek was more than qualified for the job, having started his game show career on "Reach for the Top" in his native country.

Moving to the U.S. in 1973, he appeared on "The Wizard of Odds," "High Rollers," "The $128,000 Question" and "Double Dare." Even during his run on "Jeopardy!", Trebek worked on other shows. In the early 1990s, he was the host of three — "Jeopardy!", "To Tell the Truth" and "Classic Concentration."

"Jeopardy!" made him famous. He won five Emmys as its host, including one last June, and received stars on both the Hollywood and Canadian walks of fame. In 2012, the show won a prestigious Peabody Award.

He taped his daily "Jeopardy!" shows at a frenetic pace, recording as many as 10 episodes (two weeks' worth) in just two days. After what was described as a mild heart attack in 2007, he was back at work in just a month.

He posted a video in January 2018 announcing he'd undergone surgery for blood clots on the brain that followed a fall he'd taken. The show was on hiatus during his recovery.

It had yet to bring in a substitute host for Trebek — save once, when he and "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak swapped their TV jobs as an April's Fool prank.

In 2012, Trebek acknowledged that he was considering retirement, but had been urged by friends to stay on so he could reach 30 years on the show. He still loved the job, he declared: "What's not to love? You have the security of a familiar environment, a familiar format, but you have the excitement of new clues and new contestants on every program. You can't beat that!"

Although many viewers considered him one of the key reasons for the show's success, Trebek himself insisted he was only there to keep things moving.

"My job is to provide the atmosphere and assistance to the contestants to get them to perform at their very best," he said in a 2012 interview. "And if I'm successful doing that, I will be perceived as a nice guy and the audience will think of me as being a bit of a star. But not if I try to steal the limelight!"

In a January 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Trebek discussed his decision to keep going with "Jeopardy!"

"It's not as if I'm overworked — we tape 46 days a year," he said. But he acknowledged he would retire someday, if he lost his edge or the job was no longer fun, adding: "And it's still fun."

Born July 22, 1940, in Sudbury, Ontario, Trebek was sent off to boarding school by his Ukrainian father and French-Canadian mother when he was barely in his teens.

After graduating high school, he spent a summer in Cincinnati to be close to a girlfriend, then returned to Canada to attend college. After earning a philosophy degree from the University of Ottawa, he went to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Co., starting as a staff announcer and eventually becoming a radio and TV reporter.

He became a U.S. citizen in 1997. Trebek's first marriage, to Elaine Callei, ended in divorce. In 1990, he married Jean Currivan, and they had two children, Emily and Matthew.

Trebek is survived by his wife, their two children and his stepdaughter, Nicky.

FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2011, file photo, Norm Crosby poses for a photo while expressing support for Jerry Lewis to be reinstated as host of the annual MDA Telethon, at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. Crosby, the deadpan mangler of the English language who thrived in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s as a television, nightclub and casino comedian, has died. He was 93. Crosby's daughter-in-law, Maggie Crosby, told the New York Times that the comic died Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 of heart failure in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Norm Crosby, comic mangler of language, dies at 93

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Norm Crosby, the deadpan mangler of the English language who thrived in the 1960s, '70s and '80s as a television, nightclub and casino comedian, has died. He was 93.

Crosby's daughter-in-law, Maggie Crosby, told The New York Times that the comic died Saturday of heart failure in Los Angeles.

Early in his career, Crosby had realized he needed a gimmick to differentiate himself from the burgeoning generation of comedians who were achieving fame on the many network TV variety shows.

"I was looking around for fresh ideas, and I kept hearing people misuse words," he told an interviewer in 1989. "So I started to use it in my act."

He called the famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock "Dr. Spook." With straight-faced sincerity, he said people "should have an apathy for one another; they should have rappaport for each other." Today's kids, he said, "gotta cut that umbrella cord and split."

Crosby's first steady work as a comic came at Blinstrub's in his native Boston, which led to an engagement in the early 1960s at the prestigious Latin Quarter in New York.

In his widely read newspaper column, Walter Winchell gave the comedian a rave, and offers from Johnny Carson and other TV shows and club dates poured in. Crosby became a favorite at the major Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos and played theaters, including many times at London's Palladium, and concert halls. He also was a regular guest on Dean Martin's celebrity roasts.

Starting in 1978, he starred in a syndicated TV show, "Norm Crosby's Comedy Shop." For many years he served as co-host with Jerry Lewis on the Labor Day weekend telethon for muscular dystrophy.

As a public performer, Crosby thrived despite having poor hearing. During World War II, he served aboard a Coast Guard submarine chaser, and concussion from the depth charges damaged his ears. He wore a hearing aid onstage.

"I was never shy about my hearing loss, probably because I got it from military service," he explained in a 1993 interview. "I got thousands of letters from people who had said they would never get a hearing aid but had changed their minds after they saw me being open about it."

Crosby was a longtime spokesman for the Better Hearing Institute and hosted an annual golf benefit for the cause. In 2009, he was among those honored by the Starkey Hearing Foundation, which raised funds to distribute hearing aids to children in need.

Norman Lawrence Crosby was born in Boston in 1927. "Like most comedians, I was the funny kid in the family and in the neighborhood," he explained in 1993. "I was always told I should entertain."

The war intervened, but after his discharge, he saw the practical value of a steady job over show business and enrolled at the Boston School of Art. He worked as a commercial artist and for a while ran a small advertising agency. But he still devoted evenings and weekends to honing his performing skills.

In October 2001, Crosby appeared at a Friars Club benefit honoring TV producer Aaron Spelling, who had been ailing with cancer. Instead of his usual word play, the comedian performed a parody of the Gettysburg address in which he praised Spelling.

Crosby married Joan Crane Foley in 1966. They had two children.

FILE - This March 4, 1992 file photo shows actor Sean Connery during a news conference in Hamburg, Germany. Connery, considered by many to have been the best James Bond, has died aged 90, according to an announcement from his family.(AP Photo/Christian Eggers, File)

Sean Connery, a lion of cinema whose roar went beyond Bond

Writing an appreciation of Sean Connery feels inevitably inadequate compared to experiencing the real thing. To glimpse his magnetism, you might turn to a photograph of him in a tailored suit, leaning against an Aston Martin. You'd probably get more of his menacing charisma by pulling up the "Chicago way" scene from "The Untouchables."

It might be enough simply to say: The king is dead.

As a lion of movies for half a century, Connery's talent was manifest. He was famously cast as James Bond without a screen test. It was that obvious. And from then on, in even the lesser films, Connery, who died Saturday at 90, was never out of place on screen. His presence was absolute. Noting his supreme confidence, the late film critic Pauline Kael once wrote, "I don't know any man since Cary Grant that men have wanted to be so much."

As a more earthy, macho movie-star ideal, Connery was so beloved that he was shared, like folklore, between generations. It helped that he never seemed to be appealing to the audience, or to anybody, for anything. With raised eyebrows and roguish wisecracks, there was little that Connery (nearly always the lead) didn't command. And to a certain extent, that cocksureness shaped his career, too.

Connery, 32 when "Dr. No" came out," had already lived through World War II. Born into poverty in Edinburgh, he left school at age 13 during the war and worked as a laborer and a bricklayer before he donned the tuxedo. He saw Bond, too, as a product of the war.

"Bond came on the scene after the War, at a time when people were fed up with rationing and drab times and utility clothes and a predominantly gray color in life," Connery, who served in the British Navy as a teenager, told Playboy in 1965. "Along comes this character who cuts right through all that like a very hot knife through butter, with his clothing and his cars and his wine and his women."

Long after achieving fame, Connery contentedly gave it up. He spent his final two decades cheerfully retired in the Caribbean, often playing golf with his wife, unimpressed and little tempted by more modern Hollywood productions. (He said he was "fed up with the idiots.")

There was irony in that. Connery, as the original cinema Bond, did much to make the style and tone of today's movie franchises — even if few carry a lick of Connery's danger. His Bond heir Daniel Craig on Saturday credited Connery with helping "create the modern blockbuster." It's hard to imagine the suave secret-service spy would have ever become a cultural force if the franchise hadn't from the start traded on its star's brutal charm. Connery crucially added humor to Ian Fleming's pages, along with a dash of cruelty.

Connery's Bond became etched as an icon of its era, one increasingly distant from today. He was the epitome of a dashing, womanizing, macho image that loomed over the second half of the 20th century. Connery differed from his character in many respects but not all. In that same Playboy interview, he explained why he believed hitting a woman with an open fist was justifiable.

Bond is the first word on Connery but it's certainly not the last. Against the pleas of fans, he departed the character at 41 (he was later coaxed back for 1983's "Never Say Never Again"), refusing to be typecast. His best and most interesting work all came after.

"The Hill" (1965) was the first of five films with Sidney Lumet (the others were "The Anderson Tapes," "The Offense," "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Family Business"), and while it's less seen than many of Connery's, it remains possibly the best expression of the actor's rugged power. He plays a prisoner of indomitable strength and defiance jailed in a sadistic British Army WWII military prison in the scorching Libyan desert.

He was a soldier again a decade later in John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King," based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, playing a military officer who's embraced as a god in Kafiristan, an impression he struggles to maintain. It's a perfect role and performance for Connery, whose best work came when he — this former bodybuilder of unimpeachable force and magnetism — was humbled.

Connery's confidence came through most dramatically when it was challenged by foes more formidable than a Bond villain. In his Oscar-winning performance in Brian De Palma's Prohibition-era crime film, "The Untouchables," he's alive to Al Capone's threat, telling Kevin Costner's Treasury Department agent: "You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?"

Accepting the Academy Award, Connery addressed his wife since 1975, Micheline Roquebrune. "In winning this award, it creates a certain dilemma because I had decided that if I had the good fortune to win, that I would give it to my wife, who deserves it," he said. "But, this evening, I discovered backstage that they're worth $15,000 — now I am not so sure. Micheline, I am only kidding. It's yours."

Connery aged well as an actor, crafting more diverse and inquisitive portraits of masculinity. He played an aging Robin Hood, with Audrey Hepburn, in "Robin and Marian" (1976), a combustible submarine captain in John McTiernan's "The Hunt for Red October" and a lovable, playful father to Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989).

Another "Indiana Jones," Connery said, had been the only thing that really tempted him to come out of retirement. That could be because the glint of mischief that accompanied nearly every Connery performance was so present in "The Last Crusade." Connery always left you feeling if not shaken then very happily stirred.

FILE - In this June 22, 2004, file photo, Eddie Van Halen plays the final chord of "Jump" during the Van Halen concert at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N,.J. Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock's biggest groups, died Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Van Halen, who had battled cancer, was 65. (John Munson/NJ Advance Media via AP)

Guitar rock legend Eddie Van Halen dies of cancer at 65

NEW YORK (AP) — Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock's biggest groups and became elevated to the status of rock god, has died. He was 65.

A person close to Van Halen's family confirmed the rocker died Tuesday due to cancer. The person was not authorized to publicly release details in advance of an official announcement.

"He was the best father I could ask for," Van Halen's son Wolfgang wrote in a social media post. "Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift."

With his distinct solos, Eddie Van Halen fueled the ultimate California party band and helped knock disco off the charts starting in the late 1970s with his band's self-titled debut album and then with the blockbuster record "1984," which contains the classics "Jump," "Panama" and "Hot for Teacher."

Van Halen is among the top 20 best-selling artists of all time, and the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Rolling Stone magazine put Eddie Van Halen at No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

Eddie Van Halen was something of a musical contradiction. He was an autodidact who could play almost any instrument, but he couldn't read music. He was a classically trained pianist who also created some of the most distinctive guitar riffs in rock history. He was a Dutch immigrant who was considered one of the greatest American guitarists of his generation.

Honors came from the music world, from Lenny Kravitz to Kenny Chesney. "You changed our world. You were the Mozart of rock guitar. Travel safe, rockstar," Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx said on Twitter. Added Lenny Kravitz: "Heaven will be electric tonight."

The members of Van Halen — the two Van Halen brothers, Eddie and Alex; vocalist David Lee Roth; and bassist Michael Anthony — formed in 1974 in Pasadena, California. They were members of rival high school bands and then attended Pasadena City College together. They combined to form the band Mammoth, but then changed to Van Halen after discovering there was another band called Mammoth.

Their 1978 release "Van Halen" opened with a blistering "Runnin' With the Devil" and then Eddie Van Halen showed off his astonishing skills in the next song, "Eruption," a furious 1:42 minute guitar solo that swoops and soars like a deranged bird. The album also contained a cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love."

Van Halen released albums on a yearly timetable — "Van Halen II" (1979), "Women and Children First" (1980), "Fair Warning" (1981) and "Diver Down" (1982) — until the monumental "1984," which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album charts (only behind Michael Jackson's "Thriller"). Rolling Stone ranked "1984" No. 81 on its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.

"Eddie put the smile back in rock guitar, at a time when it was all getting a bit brooding. He also scared the hell out of a million guitarists around the world, because he was so damn good. And original," Joe Satriani, a fellow virtuoso, told Billboard in 2015.

Van Halen also played guitar on one of the biggest singles of the 1980s: Jackson's "Beat It." His solo lasted all of 20 seconds and took only a half an hour to record. He did it as a favor to producer Quincy Jones, while the rest of his Van Halen bandmates were out of town.

Van Halen received no compensation or credit for the work, even though he rearranged the section he played on. "It was 20 minutes of my life. I didn't want anything for doing that," he told Billboard in 2015. "I literally thought to myself, 'Who is possibly going to know if I play on this kid's record?'" Rolling Stone ranked "Beat It" No. 344 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Jackson's melding of hard rock and R&B preceded the meeting of Run-DMC and Aerosmith by four years.

But strains between Roth and the band erupted after their 1984 world tour and Roth left. The group then recruited Sammy Hagar as lead singer —some critics called the new formulation "Van Hagar" — and the band went on to score its first No. 1 album with "5150," More studio albums followed, including "OU812," "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" and "Balance." Hit singles included "Why Can't This Be Love" and "When It's Love."

Hagar was ousted in 1996 and former Extreme singer Gary Cherone stepped in for the album "Van Halen III," a stumble that didn't lead to another album and the quick departure of Cherone. Roth would eventually return in 2007 and team up with the Van Halen brothers and Wolfgang Van Halen on bass for a tour, the album "A Different Kind of Truth" and the 2015 album "Tokyo Dome Live in Concert."

Van Halen's music has appeared in films as varied as "Superbad," "Minions" and "Sing" as well as TV shows like "Glee" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Video games such as "Gran Turismo 4" and "Guitar Hero" have used his riffs. Their song "Jamie's Cryin" was sampled by rapper Tone Loc in his hit "Wild Thing."

For much of his career, Eddie Van Halen wrote and experimented with sounds while drunk or high or both. He revealed that he would stay in his hotel room drinking vodka and snorting cocaine while playing into a tape recorder. (Hagar's 2011 autobiography "Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock" portrays Eddie as a violent, booze-addled vampire, living inside a garbage-strewn house.)

"I didn't drink to party," Van Halen told Billboard. "Alcohol and cocaine were private things to me. I would use them for work. The blow keeps you awake and the alcohol lowers your inhibitions. I'm sure there were musical things I would not have attempted were I not in that mental state."

Eddie Van Halen was born in Amsterdam and his family immigrated to California in 1962 when he was 7. His father was a big band clarinetist who rarely found work after coming to the U.S., and their mother was a maid who had dreams of her sons being classical pianists. The Van Halens shared a house with three other families. Eddie and Alex had only each other, a tight relationship that flowed through their music.

"We showed up here with the equivalent of $50 and a piano," Eddie Van Halen told The Associated Press in 2015. "We came halfway around the world without money, without a set job, no place to live and couldn't even speak the language."

He said his earliest memories of music were banging pots and pans together, marching to John Philip Sousa marches. At one point, Eddie got a drum set, which his older brother coveted.

"I never wanted to play guitar," he confessed at a talk at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2015. But his brother was good at the drums, so Eddie gave into his brother's wishes: "I said, 'Go ahead, take my drums. I'll play your damn guitar.'"

He was a relentless experimenter who would solder different parts from different guitar-makers, including Gibson and Fender. He created his own graphic design for his guitars by adding tape to the instruments and then spray-painting them. He said his influences were Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.

Van Halen, sober since 2008, lost one-third of his tongue to a cancer that eventually drifted into his esophagus. In 1999, he had a hip replacement. He was married twice, to actress Valerie Bertinelli from 1981 to 2007 and then to stuntwoman-turned-publicist Janie Liszewski, whom he wed in 2009.

"I'm so grateful Wolfie and I were able to hold you in your last moments," Bertinelli wrote on Instagram, showing an image of their baby son. "I will see you in our next life."

FILE - In this March 1968 file photo, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson is pictured during baseball spring training in Florida. Gibson, the dominating pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, died Friday, Oct. 2, 2020. He was 84. (AP Photo, File)

Bob Gibson, fierce Hall of Fame ace for Cards, dies at 84

Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, the dominating St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, died Friday. He was 84.

The Cardinals confirmed Gibson's death shortly after a 4-0 playoff loss to San Diego ended their season. He had long been ill with pancreatic cancer in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

Gibson's death came on the 52nd anniversary of perhaps his most overpowering performance, when he struck out a World Series record 17 batters in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series against Detroit.

One of baseball's most uncompromising competitors, the two-time Cy Young Award winner spent his entire 17-year career with St. Louis and was named the World Series MVP in their 1964 and '67 championship seasons. The Cards came up just short in 1968, but Gibson was voted the National League's MVP and shut down opponents so well that baseball changed the rules for fear it would happen again.

Gibson died less than a month after the death of a longtime teammate, Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock. Another pitching great from his era, Tom Seaver, died in late August.

"I just heard the news about losing Bob Gibson and it's kind of hard losing a legend. You can lose a game, but when you lose a guy like Bob Gibson, just hard," Cardinals star catcher Yadier Molina said. "Bob was funny, smart, he brought a lot of energy. When he talked, you listened. It was good to have him around every year. We lose a game, we lose a series, but the tough thing is we lost one great man."

At his peak, Gibson may have been the most talented all-around starter in history, a nine-time Gold Glove winner who roamed wide to snatch up grounders despite a fierce, sweeping delivery that drove him to the first base side of the mound; and a strong hitter who twice hit five home runs in a single season and batted .303 in 1970, when he also won his second Cy Young.

Baseball wasn't his only sport, either. He also starred in basketball at Creighton and spent a year with the Harlem Globetrotters before totally turning his attention to the diamond.

Averaging 19 wins a year from 1963-72, he finished 251-174 with a 2.91 ERA, and was only the second pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts. He didn't throw as hard as Sandy Koufax, or from as many angles as Juan Marichal, but batters never forgot how he glared at them (or squinted, because he was near-sighted) as if settling an ancient score.

Gibson snubbed opposing players and sometimes teammates who dared speak to him on a day he was pitching, and he didn't even spare his own family.

"I've played a couple of hundred games of tic-tac-toe with my little daughter and she hasn't beaten me yet," he once told The New Yorker's Roger Angell. "I've always had to win. I've got to win."

Equally disciplined and impatient, Gibson worked so quickly that broadcaster Vin Scully joked that he pitched as if his car was double-parked.

Ball in hand, he was no nonsense on the hill. And he had no use for advice, scowling whenever catcher Tim McCarver or anyone else thought of visiting the mound.

"The only thing you know about pitching is you can't hit it," Gibson was known to say.

His concentration was such that he seemed unaware he was on his way to a World Series single game strikeout record (surpassing Sandy Koufax's 15) in 1968 until McCarver convinced him to look at the scoreboard.

During the regular season, Gibson struck out more than 200 batters nine times and led the National League in shutouts four times, finishing with 56 in his career. In 1968, thirteen of his 22 wins were shutouts, leading McCarver to call Gibson "the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs."

He was, somehow, even greater in the postseason, finishing 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 81 innings. Despite dominating the Tigers in the 1968 Series opener, that year ended with a Game 7 loss — hurt by a rare misplay from star center fielder Curt Flood — and a rewriting of the rules that he would long resent.

Gibson's 1.12 ERA in the regular season was the third lowest for any starting pitcher since 1900 and by far the best for any starter in the post-dead-ball era, which began in the 1920s.

His 1968 performance, the highlight of the so-called "Year of the Pitcher," left officials worried that fans had bored of so many 1-0 games. They lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches in 1969 and shrank the strike zone.

"I was pissed," Gibson later remarked, although he remained a top pitcher for several years and in 1971 threw his only no-hitter, against Pittsburgh.

Gibson had a long major league career even though he was a relatively late bloomer and was in his early 30s in 1968. Signed by the Cards as an amateur free agent in 1957, he had early trouble with his control, a problem solved by developing one of baseball's greatest sliders, along with a curve to go with his hard fastball. He knew how to throw strikes and how to aim elsewhere when batters stood too close to the plate.

Hank Aaron once counseled Atlanta Braves teammate Dusty Baker about Gibson.

"Don't dig in against Bob Gibson; he'll knock you down," Aaron said, according to the Boston Globe. "He'd knock down his own grandmother if she dared to challenge him. Don't stare at him, don't smile at him, don't talk to him. He doesn't like it. If you happen to hit a home run, don't run too slow, don't run too fast. If you happen to want to celebrate, get in the tunnel first. And if he hits you, don't charge the mound, because he's a Gold Glove boxer."

Only the second Black (after Don Newcombe) to win the Cy Young Award, he was an inspiration when insisting otherwise. Gibson would describe himself as a "blunt, stubborn Black man" who scorned the idea he was anyone's role model and once posted a sign over his locker reading "I'm not prejudiced. I hate everybody."

But he was proud of the Cards' racial diversity and teamwork, a powerful symbol during the civil rights era, and his role in ensuring that players did not live in segregated housing during the season.

He was close to McCarver, a Tennessean who would credit Gibson with challenging his own prejudices, and the acknowledged leader of a club which featured whites (McCarver, Mike Shannon, Roger Maris), Blacks (Gibson, Brock and Flood) and Hispanics (Orlando Cepeda, Julian Javier).

"Our team, as a whole, had no tolerance for ethnic or racial disrespect," Gibson wrote in "Pitch by Pitch," published in 2015. "We'd talk about it openly and in no uncertain terms. In our clubhouse, nobody got a free pass."

Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty, who is Black, grew close to Gibson in recent years. The right-handers would often talk, the 24-year-old Flaherty soaking up advice from the great who wore No. 45.

"That one hurts," said Flaherty, the Cardinals' losing pitcher Friday night. "He's a legend, first and foremost, somebody who I was lucky enough to learn from. You don't get the opportunity to learn from somebody of that caliber and somebody who was that good very often."

"I had been kept up on his health and where he was at. I was really hoping it wasn't going to be today. I was going to wear his jersey today to the field but decided against it," he said.

Born Pack Robert Gibson in Omaha on Nov. 9, 1935, Gibson overcame childhood illness that nearly cost him his life. His father died soon before his birth, and he grew up in poverty. His mother was a laundry worker, trying to support Gibson and his six siblings.

"Growing up without a father is a hardship and deprivation that is impossible to measure," Gibson wrote in "From Ghetto to Glory," one of a handful of books he published.

Gibson went to Omaha Tech High School and stayed in town, attending Creighton from 1954-57, and averaging 20.2 points during his college basketball career. The roughly 6-foot, 2-inch Gibson, who seemed so much taller on the mound, spent the 1957-58 season with the Globetrotters before turning his full attention to baseball.

At Omaha in the minor leagues, he was managed by Johnny Keane, who became a mentor and cherished friend, "the closest thing to a saint" he would ever know in baseball.

Gibson was often forced to live in separate hotels from his white teammates and was subjected to vicious taunts from fans, but he would remember Keane as "without prejudice" and as an unshakeable believer in his talent.

His early years with the Cardinals were plagued by tensions with manager Solly Hemus, who openly used racist language and was despised by Gibson and other Cardinals. Hemus was fired in the middle of the 1961 season and replaced, to Gibson's great fortune, by Keane.

The pitcher's career soon took off. He made the first of his eight National League All-Star teams in 1962, and the following year went 18-9 and kept the Cardinals in the pennant race until late in the season.

In 1964, a year he regarded as his favorite, he won three times in the last 11 games as the Cardinals surged past the collapsing Philadelphia Phillies and won the National League title. Gibson lost Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees, but he came back with wins in Games 5 and 7 and was named the MVP.

The series was widely regarded as a turning point in baseball history, with the great Yankee dynasty falling the following year and the Cardinals embodying a more modern and aggressive style of play. Keane stuck with Gibson in Game 7 even after the Yankees' Clete Boyer and Phil Linz homered in the ninth inning and narrowed the Cardinals' lead to 7-5. He would later say of Gibson, who retired Bobby Richardson on a pop fly to end the series, that he had a commitment to "his heart."

Gibson was also close to Keane's successor, Red Schoendienst, who took over in 1965 after Keane left for the Yankees. Gibson enjoyed 20-game seasons in 1965 and 1966 and likely would have done the same a third straight year, but a Roberto Clemente line drive broke his leg in the middle of the season. (Gibson was so determined he still managed to finish the inning).

Gibson returned in September, finished 13-7 during the regular season and led the Cardinals to the 1967 championship, winning three times and hitting a home run off Red Sox ace Jim Lonborg in Game 7 at Boston's Fenway Park. The final out was especially gratifying; he fanned first baseman George Scott, who throughout the series had been taunting Gibson and the Cards.

But 1968 was on a level few had seen before. He began slowly, losing five of his first eight decisions despite an ERA of 1.52, and fumed over the lack of hitting support. ("Starvation fare," Angell would call it).

But from early June to late August, Gibson was unbeatable. He won 15 straight decisions, threw 10 shutouts and at one point allowed just three earned runs during 101 innings. One of those runs scored on a wild pitch, another on a bloop hit.

He was at his best again in the opener of the World Series, giving a performance so singular that his book "Pitch by Pitch" was dedicated entirely to it.

On a muggy afternoon in St. Louis, facing 31-game winner Denny McLain and such power hitters as Al Kaline — who also died this year — Norm Cash and Willie Horton, he allowed just five hits and walked one in a 4-0 victory. Gibson struck out at least one batter every inning and in the ninth fanned Kaline, Cash and Horton to end with 17, the final pitch a slow breaking ball that left Horton frozen in place.

"I was awed," Tigers second baseman Dick McAuliffe later said. "He doesn't remind me of anybody. He's all by himself."

In Game 4, Gibson homered as he led the Cards to a 10-1 romp over McLain and 3-to-1 advantage in the series. But the Tigers won the next two and broke through in the finale against Gibson, who had a one-hitter with two out in the seventh inning, and the score 0-0.

Gibson allowed two singles before Flood, a Gold Glove center fielder, misplayed Jim Northrup's drive to left center and the ball fell, before the warning track, for a two-run triple. The Cardinals lost 4-1 and Gibson would grimace even decades later when asked about the game.

By the mid-1970s, his knees were aching and he had admittedly lost some of his competitive fury. On the last day of the 1974 season, with a 2-1 lead and a division title possible, he gave up a two-run homer to the Montreal Expos' Mike Jorgensen in the eighth inning and the Cards lost 3-2.

He retired after 1975, humiliated in his final appearance when he gave up a grand slam home run to the Chicago Cubs' Pete LaCock. (When the two faced off a decade later, at an old-timers game, Gibson beaned him).

Gibson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981, and the Cards retired his uniform number. He had a far less successful career as a coach, whether for the New York Mets and Braves in the 1980s, or for the Cardinals in 1995.

He was married twice, most recently to Wendy Gibson, and spent much of his retirement at his longtime home in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue. He was active in charitable causes and hosted a popular golf event in Omaha that drew some of the top names in sports.

Gibson worried that young people were forgetting about baseball history, and he spoke with dismay about a Cardinal player who knew nothing about Jackie Robinson. But in 2018, Gibson himself was honored when the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra commissioned a rap song in his honor.

The lyrics inspired by "From Ghetto to Glory" — "He was a game changer The complete gamer Throw a pitch so fast It'll rearrange ya He's no stranger He's Bob Gibson been on a mission He changed the game forever The pitcher was his position."

FILE - Musician Mac Davis performs at the Texas Film Awards in Austin, Texas on March 6, 2014. Davis, a country star and Elvis songwriter, died on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020 after heart surgery. He was 78. Davis started his career writing hits for Presley, including "A Little Less Conversation" and "In the Ghetto." The Lubbock, Texas-native had a varied career over the years as a singer, actor and TV host and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. He was named ACM entertainer of the year in 1974 after the success of songs like "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me." (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP, File)

Country star and hit Elvis songwriter Mac Davis dies at 78

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Mac Davis, who launched his career crafting the Elvis hits "A Little Less Conversation" and "In the Ghetto," and whose own hits include "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me," has died. He was 78.

His longtime manager Jim Morey said in a press release that Davis died in Nashville on Tuesday after heart surgery and was surrounded by family and friends.

Davis had a long and varied career in music for decades as a writer, singer, actor and TV host and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. He was named 1974's entertainer of the year by the Academy of Country Music and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

"Thank you, dear Lord Jesus, for letting us know the man to whom you gave the most incredible talent," said Reba McEntire in a statement. "He entertained and spread joy to so many people. What a wonderful legacy he left all of us with his music. Mac was one of a kind. I'm so blessed to have been one of his many friends."

Born in Lubbock, Texas, and raised in Georgia, Davis was inspired by fellow Lubbock native Buddy Holly, but it was Elvis who gave him his first musical big break. Davis worked as a staff songwriter in Los Angeles for Nancy Sinatra's publishing company when in 1968 Presley cut "A Little Less Conversation."

Although it had a little success at the time, the song became a bigger hit after Presley's death, being covered by more than 30 artists and became Davis' most licensed TV soundtrack song. The song reached the top of the UK charts in 2002 after it was used in a Nike commercial and was featured in the hit movie "Ocean's 11."

Davis also helped craft the song "Memories" that was a cornerstone of Elvis' big 1968 comeback TV special.

"A small town boy who'd achieved the greatest kinds of fame, he remained a good guy, a family man," said country star Kenny Chesney. "That was Mac: a giant heart, quick to laugh and a bigger creative spirit. I was blessed to have it shine on me. And Mac, who was joyous, funny and created a family around him, never stopped writing great songs, creating music and inspiring everyone around him."

Davis got a recording deal of his own in 1970, recording "Hooked on Music," "It's Hard to be Humble," and "Texas in my Rearview Mirror," and getting crossover success on pop charts. He had his own TV series, "The Mac Davis Show" on NBC, and also acted in TV and film, including alongside Nick Nolte in the football film "North Dallas Forty." He even starred on Broadway, in "The Will Rogers Follies" and toured with the musical. The group Gallery had a hit on his song "I Believe in Music."

"He was the songwriter behind some of the most iconic and timeless songs that transcend genres and generations and was named a BMI Icon in 2015," said BMI President and CEO Mike O'Neil. "Beyond his extraordinary talent, Mac was a dedicated friend and advocate for songwriters everywhere."

He also wrote songs recorded by Kenny Rogers ("Something's Burning"), Dolly Parton ("White Limozeen") and Ray Price ("Lonesomest Lonesome"). He was still writing later in life, getting co-writing credits on songs by Avicii ( "Addicted to You") and Bruno Mars ("Young Girls.")

"Today our country community lost an amazing entertainer, songwriter and artist," said Sarah Trahern, CEO of CMA. "I remember watching Mac's TV show as a kid as well as his three years co-hosting the CMA Awards with Barbara Mandrell, which proved his command of the TV medium as well as the music."

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2015, file photo, Australian-born singer Helen Reddy attends the 2015 G'DAY USA GALA at the Hollywood Palladium, in Los Angeles. Reddy, who shot to stardom in the 1970s with her feminist anthem "I Am Woman" and recorded a string of other hits, has died at age 78. Reddy's children Traci and Jordan announced that the actress-singer died Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rob Latour/Invision/AP, File)

'I Am Woman' singer Helen Reddy, '70s hitmaker, dies at 78

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Helen Reddy, who shot to stardom in the 1970s with her rousing feminist anthem "I Am Woman" and recorded a string of other hits, has died. She was 78.

Reddy's children Traci and Jordan announced that the actor-singer died Tuesday in Los Angeles. "She was a wonderful Mother, Grandmother and a truly formidable woman," they said in a statement. "Our hearts are broken. But we take comfort in the knowledge that her voice will live on forever."

Reddy's 1971 version of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" launched a decade-long string of Top 40 hits, three of which reached No. 1.

The Australian-born singer enjoyed a prolific career, appearing in "Airport 1975" as a singing nun and scoring several hits, including "Ain't No Way To Treat a Lady," "Delta Dawn," "Angie Baby" and "You and Me Against the World."

In 1973 she won the best female vocal pop performance Grammy Award for "I Am Woman," quickly thanking her then-husband and others in her acceptance speech.

"I only have 10 seconds so I would like to thank everyone from Sony Capitol Records, I would like to think Jeff Wald because he makes my success possible and I would like to thank God because she makes everything possible," Reddy said, hoisting her Grammy in the air and leaving the stage to loud applause. She also performed the song at the ceremony.

"I Am Woman" would become her biggest hit, used in films and television series.

In a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, Reddy cited the gigantic success of "I Am Woman" as one of the reasons she stepped out of public life.

"That was one of the reasons that I stopped singing, was when I was shown a modern American history high-school textbook, and a whole chapter on feminism and my name and my lyrics (were) in the book," she told the AP. "And I thought, `Well, I'm part of history now. And how do I top that? I can't top that.' So, it was an easy withdrawal."

Reddy's death comes less than three weeks after the release of a biopic about her life called "I Am Woman."

The film's director, Unjoo Moon, said the film resulted in a seven-year friendship with Reddy.

"I will forever be grateful to Helen for teaching me so much about being an artist, a woman and a mother," she said in a statement. "She paved the way for so many and the lyrics that she wrote for 'I am Woman' changed my life forever like they have done for so many other people and will continue to do for generations to come. She will always be a part of me and I will miss her enormously."

A performer since childhood, Reddy was part of a show-business family in Melbourne. She won a contest that brought her to the United States and launched her recording career, although she first had to overcome ideas about her sound.

"In my earlier days in Australia, I was considered to be more of a jazz singer," she told the AP in 1991. "When I won the contest that brought me to this country, one person said, 'The judges didn't feel you could have a recording career because you don't have a commercial sound.'"

Reddy retired from performing in the 1990s and returned to Australia, getting her degree in clinical hypnotherapy.

She later returned to California, where in the 1970s she had served on a statewide Parks and Recreation Commission, and returned to the stage occasionally.

In 2017 she performed "I Am Woman" at a Women's March in Los Angeles, singing alongside actor Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis said it was the " honor of my life" to introduce Reddy at the event.

FILE - This is a 1970 file photo showing Chicago Bears football player Gale Sayers. Hall of Famer Gale Sayers, who made his mark as one of the NFL's best all-purpose running backs and was later celebrated for his enduring friendship with a Chicago Bears teammate with cancer, has died. He was 77. Nicknamed "The Kansas Comet" and considered among the best open-field runners the game has ever seen, Sayers died Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (AP Photo/FIle)

Gale Sayers, Bears Hall of Fame running back, dies at 77

CHICAGO (AP) — Gale Sayers, the dazzling and elusive running back who entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite the briefest of careers and whose fame extended far beyond the field for decades thanks to a friendship with a dying Chicago Bears teammate, has died. He was 77.

Nicknamed "The Kansas Comet" and considered among the best open-field runners the game has ever seen, Sayers died Wednesday, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Relatives of Sayers had said he was diagnosed with dementia. In March 2017, his wife, Ardythe, said she partly blamed his football career.

"Football fans know well Gale's many accomplishments on the field: a rare combination of speed and power as the game's most electrifying runner, a dangerous kick returner, his comeback from a serious knee injury to lead the league in rushing, and becoming the youngest player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame," Bears chairman George McCaskey said in a statement. "People who weren't even football fans came to know Gale through the TV movie 'Brian's Song,' about his friendship with teammate Brian Piccolo. Fifty years later, the movie's message that brotherhood and love needn't be defined by skin color still resonates."

Sayers was a blur to NFL defenses, ghosting would-be tacklers or zooming by them like few running backs or kick returners before or since. Yet it was his rock-steady friendship with Piccolo, depicted in the film "Brian's Song," that marked him as more than a sports star.

"He was the very essence of a team player — quiet, unassuming and always ready to compliment a teammate for a key block," Hall of Fame President David Baker said. "Gale was an extraordinary man who overcame a great deal of adversity during his NFL career and life."

Sayers became a stockbroker, sports administrator, businessman and philanthropist for several inner-city Chicago youth initiatives after his pro football career was cut short by serious injuries to both knees.

"Gale was one of the finest men in NFL history and one of the game's most exciting players," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. "Gale was an electrifying and elusive runner who thrilled fans every time he touched the ball. He earned his place as a first-ballot Hall of Famer."

A football and track star at Omaha Central High School in Nebraska, Sayers was a two-time All-American at Kansas and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was selected by Chicago with the fourth pick overall in 1965, and his versatility produced dividends and highlight-reel slaloms through opposing defenses right the start.

He tied an NFL record with six touchdowns in a game and set another with 22 touchdowns in his first season: 14 rushing, six receiving, one punt and one kickoff return. Sayers was a unanimous choice for Offensive Rookie of the Year.

"I played football a long time and I never saw a better football player than Gale Sayers," said Hall of Fame tight end Mike Ditka, Sayers' teammate from 1965-66. "I mean that. He was poetry in motion. Besides that, he was a great guy. It's just a shame that he's gone. He was special."

Ditka later coached Walter Payton, giving him an up-close look at two of the best running backs. But the greatest performance he saw might have been Sayers' six-touchdown game. Playing San Francisco at a muddy Wrigley Field, just about everyone else was slipping and sliding.

"He was playing on a different field than we were," Ditka said. "The field was wet, it was slippery, it was kind of muddy. He was unbelievable. He was making runs and cuts that were unbelievable."

Sayers was an All-Pro during the first five of his seven NFL seasons (1965-71). But he was stuck on a handful of middling-to-bad Bears teams and, like Dick Butkus, another Hall of Fame teammate selected in the same 1965 draft, he never played in the postseason. Sayers appeared in only 68 games total and just two in each of his final two seasons while attempting to return from those knee injuries.

"Will miss a great friend who helped me become the player I became because after practicing and scrimmaging against Gale I knew I could play against anybody," Butkus said. "We lost one of the best Bears ever and more importantly we lost a great person."

In 1977, at age 34, Sayers became the youngest player inducted into the Hall of Fame. In presenting him at the ceremony, Bears founder George Halas said: "If you wish to see perfection as a running back, you had best get a hold of a film of Gale Sayers. He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again."

Butkus said he hadn't even seen Sayers play until a highlight film was shown at an event in New York that both attended honoring the 1964 All-America team. He said the real-life version of Sayers was even better.

"He was amazing. I still attribute a lot of my success from trying to tackle him (in practice)," Butkus said at the Bears' 100th anniversary celebration in June 2019.

"I never came up against a running back like him in my whole career, as far as a halfback. And that was counting O.J. (Simpson) and a couple of other guys," he added. "No one could touch this guy."

The Bears drafted them with back-to-back picks in '65, taking Butkus at No. 3 and Sayers at No. 4. It didn't take long for Sayers to win over veterans who had helped the Bears take the NFL championship in 1963.

"We were both No. 1s, so they're going to make it hard on us and show us the ropes and everything else," Butkus said. "But Gale just ran circles around everybody. Quickly, they adopted him."

The friendship between Sayers and backfield mate Piccolo began in 1967, when the two became unlikely roommates. Sayers was Black and already a star; Piccolo was white and had worked his way up from the practice squad. Early on, they were competing for playing time and carries.

But when the club dropped its policy of segregating players by race in hotel room assignments, they forged a bond. In 1968, Piccolo helped Sayers through a tough rehab process while he recovered from a torn ligament in his right knee. After Sayers returned the next season to become an All-Pro, he made sure his friend shared in the credit.

They became even closer after Piccolo pulled himself out of a game early in the 1969 season because of breathing difficulties and was diagnosed with cancer. That phase of their friendship was recounted first by Sayers in his autobiography, "I Am Third," and then in the 1971 movie "Brian's Song."

With actor Billy Dee Williams playing Sayers and James Caan in Piccolo's role, the made-for-TV movie was later released in theaters.

Sayers stayed by Piccolo's side as the illness took its toll, donating blood and providing support. Just days before Piccolo's death age 26, Sayers received the George S. Halas Award for courage and said: "You flatter me by giving me this award, but I can tell you here and now that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. ... I love Brian Piccolo and I'd like all of you to love him, too. Tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him."

After his playing days, Sayers served as athletic director at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and founded several technology and consulting businesses.

Sayers made the 130-mile trip from his home in Indiana to attend the opening ceremony of the Bears' 100th-season celebration in June 2019, receiving a rousing ovation.

"It's amazing someone that was so beautiful and gifted and talented as a player and later in life to have that happen to you is really, I know, tough on everybody," Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary said that weekend.

"It's tough on his teammates, former teammates. It's tough on the league. And as a player," Singletary concluded, "it just makes you take a step back and thank God every day for your own health and blessings."

FILE - This Sept. 20, 2017, file photo shows Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking at the Georgetown University Law Center campus in Washington. Ginsburg didn't put on her judge's robe without also fastening something around her neck. Ginsburg called her neckwear collars, or jabots, and they became part of her signature style, along with her glasses, lace gloves and fabric hair ties known as scrunchies. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, file)

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a towering women's rights champion who became the court's second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.

Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Her death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known.

Trump, who called Ginsburg "an amazing woman," made his view clear on Saturday: He urged the Senate to consider "without delay" his upcoming pick for the high court. "We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us," Trump tweeted, "the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!"

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late Friday that the Senate would vote, even though it's an election year.

Biden said the winner of the November election should choose Ginsburg's replacement. "There is no doubt — let me be clear — that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider," Biden told reporters after returning to Wilmington, Delaware, from campaign stops in Minnesota.

Her colleagues on the court penned heartfelt messages of grief, respect and awe for Ginsburg that also reflected the personal ties between the justices.

"Through the many challenges both professionally and personally, she was the essence of grace, civility and dignity," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote. "The most difficult part of a long tenure is watching colleagues decline and pass away. And, the passing of my dear colleague, Ruth, is profoundly difficult and so very sad. I will dearly miss my friend."

Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.

Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court's liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirer s. Young women especially seemed to embrace her, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defense of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.

Those health issues included five bouts with cancer beginning in 1999, falls that resulted in broken ribs, insertion of a stent to clear a blocked artery and assorted other hospitalizations after she turned 75.

She resisted calls by liberals to retire during Barack Obama's presidency at a time when Democrats held the Senate and a replacement with similar views could have been confirmed. Instead, Trump will almost certainly try to push Ginsburg's successor through the Republican-controlled Senate — and move the conservative court even more to the right.

Ginsburg antagonized Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign in a series of media interviews, including calling him a faker. She soon apologized.

Her appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1993 was the first by a Democrat in 26 years. She initially found a comfortable ideological home somewhere left of center on a conservative court dominated by Republican appointees. Her liberal voice grew stronger the longer she served.

Ginsburg was a mother of two, an opera lover and an intellectual who also liked to show off her femininity, choosing to accessorize her robe with lace and beaded collars, and delighting in the fashion featuring her likeness that would later spring up. At argument sessions in the ornate courtroom, she was known for digging deep into case records and for being a stickler for following the rules.

She argued six key cases before the court in the 1970s when she was an architect of the women's rights movement. She won five.

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not need a seat on the Supreme Court to earn her place in the American history books," Clinton said at the time of her appointment. "She has already done that."

Following her death, Clinton said, "Her 27 years on the Court exceeded even my highest expectations when I appointed her."

On the court, where she was known as a facile writer, her most significant majority opinions were the 1996 ruling that ordered the Virginia Military Institute to accept women or give up its state funding, and the 2015 decision that upheld independent commissions some states use to draw congressional districts.

Besides civil rights, Ginsburg took an interest in capital punishment, voting repeatedly to limit its use. During her tenure, the court declared it unconstitutional for states to execute the intellectually disabled and killers younger than 18.

In addition, she questioned the quality of lawyers for poor accused murderers. In the most divisive of cases, including the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, she was often at odds with the court's more conservative members — initially Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The division remained the same after John Roberts replaced Rehnquist as chief justice, Samuel Alito took O'Connor's seat, and, under Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court, in seats that had been held by Scalia and Kennedy, respectively.

Ginsburg would say later that the 5-4 decision that settled the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush was a "breathtaking episode" at the court.

She was perhaps personally closest on the court to Scalia, her ideological opposite. Ginsburg once explained that she took Scalia's sometimes biting dissents as a challenge to be met. "How am I going to answer this in a way that's a real putdown?" she said.

When Scalia died in 2016, also an election year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to act on Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump's surprising presidential victory. McConnell has said he would move to confirm a Trump nominee if there were a vacancy this year.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would hold hearings on a nominee, tweeted that he backed Trump "in any effort to move forward" and fill the vacancy.

McConnell, in a note to his GOP colleagues Friday night, urged them to "keep their powder dry" and not rush to declare a position on whether a Trump nominee should get a vote this year. "This is not the time to prematurely lock yourselves into a position you may later regret," he said.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer tweeted: "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."

Ginsburg authored powerful dissents of her own in cases involving abortion, voting rights and pay discrimination against women. She said some were aimed at swaying the opinions of her fellow judges while others were "an appeal to the intelligence of another day" in the hopes that they would provide guidance to future courts.

"Hope springs eternal," she said in 2007, "and when I am writing a dissent, I'm always hoping for that fifth or sixth vote — even though I'm disappointed more often than not."

She wrote memorably in 2013 that the court's decision to cut out a key part of the federal law that had ensured the voting rights of Black people, Hispanics and other minorities was "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

Change on the court hit Ginsburg especially hard. She dissented forcefully from the court's decision in 2007 to uphold a nationwide ban on an abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. The court, with O'Connor still on it, had struck down a similar state ban seven years earlier. The "alarming" ruling, Ginsburg said, "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and received radiation and chemotherapy. She had surgery again in 2009 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in December 2018 for cancerous growths on her left lung. Following the last surgery, she missed court sessions for the first time in more than 25 years on the bench.

Ginsburg also was treated with radiation for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. She maintained an active schedule even during the three weeks of radiation. When she revealed a recurrence of her cancer in July 2020, Ginsburg said she remained "fully able" to continue as a justice.

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, the second daughter in a middle-class family. Her older sister, who gave her the lifelong nickname "Kiki," died at age 6, so Ginsburg grew up in Brooklyn's Flatbush section as an only child. Her dream, she has said, was to be an opera singer.

Ginsburg graduated at the top of her Columbia University law school class in 1959 but could not find a law firm willing to hire her. She had "three strikes against her" — for being Jewish, female and a mother, as she put it in 2007.

She had married her husband, Martin, in 1954, the year she graduated from Cornell University. She attended Harvard University's law school but transferred to Columbia when her husband took a law job there. Martin Ginsburg went on to become a prominent tax attorney and law professor. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. She is survived by two children, Jane and James, and several grandchildren.

Ginsburg once said that she had not entered the law as an equal-rights champion. "I thought I could do a lawyer's job better than any other," she wrote. "I have no talent in the arts, but I do write fairly well and analyze problems clearly."

James Bond, 'Avengers' star Diana Rigg dies at 82

LONDON — Diana Rigg, a British actress who became a 1960s style icon as secret agent Emma Peel in TV series "The Avengers," has died. She was 82.

Rigg's agent Simon Beresford said she died Thursday morning at home with her family.

Rigg's daughter, Rachael Stirling, said she died of cancer that was diagnosed in March.

Rigg starred in "The Avengers" alongside Patrick McNee's bowler-hatted John Steed. The pair were an impeccably dressed duo who fought villains and traded quips in a show whose mix of adventure and humor was enduringly influential.

Rigg also starred in spy thriller "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as the only woman ever to marry James Bond.

In later life, she played Olenna Tyrell in "Game of Thrones."

FILE - In this Jan. 1, 2002 file photo, singer and actor Trini Lopez poses in Dallas. Trini Lopez, a singer and guitarist who gained fame for his versions of "Lemon Tree" and "If I Had a Hammer" in the 1960s and took his talents to Hollywood, has died. He was 83. Filmmaker P. David Ebersole confirmed that Lopez died Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020 at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, Calif., from COVID-19. (Cheryl Diaz Meyer/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

Trini Lopez, 1960s-era singer mentored by Sinatra, dies

RIO RANCHO, N.M. (AP) — Trini Lopez, a singer and guitarist who gained fame for his versions of "Lemon Tree" and "If I Had a Hammer" in the 1960s and took his talents to Hollywood, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Filmmaker P. David Ebersole, who just finished shooting a documentary on Lopez with Todd Hughes, confirmed that Lopez died from complications of COVID-19 at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California.

Business partner and musician Joe Chavira said he and Lopez just finished recording a song "If By Now," a tune meant to raise money for food banks during COVID-19. "And here he is dying of something he was trying to fight," Chavira said.

Lopez crossed over into acting, appearing in the World War II drama "The Dirty Dozen," the comedy "The Phynx" and credits on television's "Adam-12." He also designed guitars that became a favorite of Dave Grohl and other rock stars.

Mentored by Buddy Holly and Frank Sinatra, Lopez became an international star while performing in English and Spanish. Unlike Mexican American singers such as Ritchie Valens, Lopez rejected advice to change his name and openly embraced his Mexican American heritage despite warnings it would hurt his career.

"I insisted on keeping my name Lopez," he told The Dallas Morning News in 2017. "I'm proud to be a Lopez. I'm proud to be a Mexicano."

Born Trinidad Lopez III to immigrants from Guanajuato, Mexico, Lopez grew up in Dallas' poor, Little Mexico neighborhood. The family's dire economic situation forced Lopez to drop out of high school and work.

His life changed after his father bought him a $12 black Gibson acoustic guitar from a pawn shop. His father taught him how to play the instrument, which led the young Lopez to perform at Dallas nightclubs that didn't allow Mexican American patrons.

Buddy Holly saw Lopez at a small nightclub in Wichita Falls, Texas, and introduced him to Norman Petty, his record producer in Clovis, New Mexico. Holly died in a plane crash six months later, and Lopez briefly replaced him as lead singer of The Crickets.

Lopez moved to Southern California and got a regular gig at P.J.'s Night Club in West Hollywood. Sinatra saw him perform and offered him a contract with his new record label, Reprise, where Lopez got his first major hit with "If I Had A Hammer." It went to No. 1 in nearly 40 countries.

They became friends and were spotted together regularly in social circles in Las Vegas and Palm Springs, California.

His debut album, "Trini Lopez at PJ's," reached the top 10 in 1963, and he had success in the Spanish-language market with "The Latin Album" and "The Second Latin Album." The rare Latino in the rock and folk world of the time, he would speak often of resisting pressure from record executives to change his name and presumably appeal more to white audiences.

Lopez received a Grammy nomination for best new artist of 1963 and by early 1964 he was so in demand that he and The Beatles were co-headliners during an 18-day engagement at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. It was just before the British band would travel to the U.S., appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and upend the careers of Lopez and countless others.

"The French newspapers would say 'Bravo Trini Lopez! Who are The Beatles?'" Lopez later told the web site www.classicbands.com. "When we finished doing the shows, the last night we were there, reporters came to my dressing room. My dressing room was next to theirs and they said 'Mr. Lopez, The Beatles are leaving tomorrow for New York. Do you think they'll be a hit?' I said 'I don't think so.'"

"Trini used to say he came to California, broke and in a station wagon. He'd thanked Sinatra for 'discovering him'," Chavira said. "Sinatra said, 'no, it was meant to be."

Lopez was rarely on the charts after the 1960s, but his line of Gibson Trini Lopez guitars released from 1964 to 1971 unexpectedly influenced a generation of younger guitarists, including Grohl, the Edge and Noel Gallagher.

Ebersole and Hughes recently finished shooting a documentary on Lopez called "My Name is Lopez," which is due to be released in 2021.

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 14, 2009 file photo, Actor Wilford Brimley attends the premiere of 'Did You Hear About The Morgans' at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from stunt performer to star of film such as "Cocoon" and "The Natural," has died. He was 85. Brimley's manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning, Aug. 1, 2020 in a Utah hospital. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)

Wilford Brimley, 'Cocoon' and 'Natural' actor, dies at 85

By LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from movie stunt rider to an indelible character actor who brought gruff charm, and sometimes menace, to a range of films that included "Cocoon," "The Natural" and "The Firm," has died. He was 85.

Brimley's manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said.

The mustached Brimley was a familiar face for a number of roles, often playing characters like his grizzled baseball manager in "The Natural" opposite Robert Redford's bad-luck phenomenon. He also worked with Redford in "Brubaker" and "The Electric Horseman."

Brimley's best-known work was in "Cocoon," in which he was part of a group of seniors who discover an alien pod that rejuvenates them. The 1985 Ron Howard film won two Oscars, including a supporting actor honor for Don Ameche.

Brimley also starred in "Cocoon: The Return," a 1988 sequel.

For years he was pitchman for Quaker Oats and in recent years appeared in a series of diabetes spots that turned him at one point into a social media sensation.

"Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust," Bensky said in a statement. "He said what he meant and he meant what he said. He had a tough exterior and a tender heart. I'm sad that I will no longer get to hear my friend's wonderful stories. He was one of a kind."

Barbara Hershey, who met Brimley on 1995's "Last of the Dogmen," called him "a wonderful man and actor. ... He always made me laugh."

Though never nominated for an Oscar or Emmy Award, Brimley amassed an impressive list of credits. In 1993's John Grisham adaptation "The Firm," Brimley starred opposite Tom Cruise as a tough-nosed investigator who deployed ruthless tactics to keep his law firm's secrets safe.

John Woo, who directed Brimley as Uncle Douvee in 1993's "Hard Target," told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 that the part was "the main great thing from the film. I was overjoyed making those scenes and especially working with Wilford Brimley."

A Utah native who grew up around horses, Brimley spent two decades traveling around the West and working at ranches and race tracks. He drifted into movie work during the 1960s, riding in such films as "True Grit," and appearing in TV series such as "Gunsmoke."

He forged a friendship with Robert Duvall, who encouraged him to seek more prominent acting roles, according to a biography prepared by Turner Classic Movies.

Brimley, who never trained as an actor, saw his career take off after he won an important role as a nuclear power plant engineer in "The China Syndrome."

"Training? I've never been to acting classes, but I've had 50 years of training," he said in a 1984 Associated Press interview. "My years as an extra were good background for learning about camera techniques and so forth. I was lucky to have had that experience; a lot of newcomers don't."

"Basically my method is to be honest," Brimley said told AP. "The camera photographs the truth — not what I want it to see, but what it sees. The truth."

Brimley had a recurring role as a blacksmith on "The Waltons" and the 1980s prime-time series "Our House."

Another side of the actor was his love of jazz. As a vocalist, he made albums including "This Time the Dream's On Me" and "Wilford Brimley with the Jeff Hamilton Trio."

In 1998, he opposed an Arizona referendum to ban cockfighting, saying that he was "trying to protect a lifestyle of freedom and choice for my grandchildren."

In recent years, Brimley's pitchwork for Liberty Medical had turned him into an internet sensation for his drawn out pronunciation of diabetes as "diabeetus." He owned the pronunciation in a tweet that drew hundreds of thousands of likes earlier this year.

Brimley is survived by his wife Beverly and three sons.

FILE - In this file photo dated Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004, Actress Olivia de Havilland, who played the doomed Southern belle Melanie in "Gone With the Wind," poses for a photograph, in Los Angeles, USA. Olivia de Havilland, Oscar-winning actress has died, aged 104 in Paris, publicist says Sunday July 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, FILE)

Olivia de Havilland, Oscar-winning actress, dies at 104

By HILLEL ITALIE and THOMAS ADAMSON Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Olivia de Havilland, the doe-eyed actress beloved to millions as the sainted Melanie Wilkes of "Gone With the Wind," but also a two-time Oscar winner and an off-screen fighter who challenged and unchained Hollywood's contract system, died Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104.

Havilland, the sister of fellow Oscar winner Joan Fontaine, died peacefully of natural causes, said New York-based publicist Lisa Goldberg.

De Havilland was among the last of the top screen performers from the studio era, and the last surviving lead from "Gone With the Wind," an irony, she once noted, since the fragile, self-sacrificing Melanie Wilkes was the only major character to die in the film. The 1939 epic, based on Margaret Mitchell's best-selling Civil War novel and winner of 10 Academy Awards, is often ranked as Hollywood's box office champion (adjusting for inflation), although it is now widely criticized for its glorified portrait of slavery and antebellum life.

The pinnacle of producer David O. Selznick's career, the movie had a troubled off-screen story.

Three directors worked on the film, stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable were far more connected on screen than off and the fourth featured performer, Leslie Howard, was indifferent to the role of Ashley Wilkes, Melanie's husband. But de Havilland remembered the movie as "one of the happiest experiences I've ever had in my life. It was doing something I wanted to do, playing a character I loved and liked."

During a career that spanned six decades, de Havilland also took on roles ranging from an unwed mother to a psychiatric inmate in "The Snake Pit," a personal favorite. The dark-haired de Havilland projected both a gentle, glowing warmth and a sense of resilience and mischief that made her uncommonly appealing.

She was Errol Flynn's co-star in a series of dramas, Westerns and period pieces, most memorably as Maid Marian in "The Adventures of Robin Hood." But de Havilland also was a prototype for an actress too beautiful for her own good, typecast in sweet and romantic roles while desiring greater challenges.

Her frustration finally led her to sue Warner Bros. in 1943 when the studio tried to keep her under contract after it had expired, claiming she owed six more months because she had been suspended for refusing roles. Her friend Bette Davis was among those who had failed to get out of her contract under similar conditions in the 1930s, but de Havilland prevailed, with the California Court of Appeals ruling that no studio could extend an agreement without the performer's consent.

The decision is still unofficially called the "De Havilland law."

De Havilland went on to earn her own Academy Award in 1946 for her performance in "To Each His Own," a melodrama about out-of-wedlock birth. A second Oscar came three years later for "The Heiress," in which she portrayed a plain young homebody opposite Montgomery Clift and Sir Ralph Richardson in an adaptation of Henry James' "Washington Square."

In 2008, de Havilland received a National Medal of Arts and was awarded France's Legion of Honor two years later.

She was also famous, not always for the better, as the sister of Fontaine, with whom she had a troubled relationship that the deeply private de Havilland refused to discuss until after Fontaine's death in 2013. In a rare 2016 interview with The Associated Press, de Havilland referred to her late sister as a "dragon lady" and said her memories of Fontaine were "multi-faceted, varying from endearing to alienating."

De Havilland once observed that Melanie Wilkes' happiness was sustained by a loving, secure family, a blessing that often eluded the actress.

She was born in Tokyo on July 1, 1916, the daughter of a British patent attorney. Her parents separated when she was 3, and her mother brought her and her younger sister Joan to Saratoga, California. De Havilland's own two marriages, to Marcus Goodrich and Pierre Galante, ended in divorce.

She had lived in Paris since 1953. In her interview with the AP at her luxurious Paris residence in 2016, as she celebrated her 100th birthday, she said she moved to the City of Light "at the insistence" of Galante, her late French former husband, and found no reason to return to the U.S.

De Havilland's acting ambitions dated back to stage performing at Mills College in Oakland, California. While preparing for a school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," she went to Hollywood to see Max Reinhardt's rehearsals of the same comedy. She was asked to read for Hermia's understudy, stayed with the production through her summer vacation and was given the role in the fall.

Warner Bros. wanted stage actors for their lavish 1934 production and chose de Havilland to co-star with Mickey Rooney, who played Puck.

"I wanted to be a stage actress," she recalled. "Life sort of made the decision for me."

She signed a five-year contract with the studio and went on to make "Captain Blood," "Dodge City" and other films with Flynn, a hopeless womanizer even by Hollywood standards.

"Oh, Errol had such magnetism! There was nobody who did what he did better than he did," said de Havilland, whose bond with the dashing actor remained, she would insist, platonic.

She is survived by her daughter, Gisele Galante Chulack, her son-in-law and her niece.

Goldberg said funeral arrangements are private.

FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2011 file photo, Regis Philbin appears on his farewell episode of "Live! with Regis and Kelly", in New York. Philbin, the genial host who shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," has died on Friday, July 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File)

Regis Philbin, television personality and host, dies at 88

By DAVID BAUDER Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Regis Philbin, the genial host who shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," has died at 88.

Philbin died of natural causes Friday night, just over a month before his 89th birthday, according to a statement from his family provided by spokesman Lewis Kay.

Celebrities routinely stopped by Philbin's eponymous syndicated morning show, but its heart was in the first 15 minutes, when he and co-host Kathie Lee Gifford — on "Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee" from 1985-2000 — or Kelly Ripa — on "Live! with Regis and Kelly" from 2001 until his 2011 retirement — bantered about the events of the day. Viewers laughed at Philbin's mock indignation over not getting the best seat at a restaurant the night before, or being henpecked by his partner.

"Even I have a little trepidation," he told The Associated Press in 2008, when asked how he does a show every day. "You wake up in the morning and you say, 'What did I do last night that I can talk about? What's new in the paper? How are we gonna fill that 20 minutes?'"

"I'm not gonna say it always works out brilliantly, but somehow we connect more often than we don't," he added.

"One of the greats in the history of television, Regis Philbin has passed on to even greater airwaves," President Donald Trump said in a tweet. "He was a fantastic person, and my friend."

Ripa and her current partner, Ryan Seacrest, called Philbin "the ultimate class act, bringing his laughter and joy into our homes every day."

"There are no words to fully express the love I have for my precious friend, Regis," Gifford said Saturday on Instagram. "I simply adored him and every day with him was a gift."

The tributes flooding in over social media read like blurbs for a movie Philbin would promote: "Always made me laugh" — Tony Bennett. "One of a kind" — Henry Winkler. "A lovely man" — Rosie O'Donnell. "His wit was only surpassed by his huge heart" — Meredith Vieira. "As wonderful a man as he was talented" — Paul Reubens, also known as Pee-Wee Herman. "You were the best" — LeVar Burton.

After hustling into an entertainment career by parking cars at a Los Angeles TV station, Philbin logged more than 15,000 hours on the air, earning him recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most broadcast hours logged by a TV personality, a record previously held by Hugh Downs.

"Every day, you see the record shattered, pal!" Philbin would tell viewers. "One more hour!"

He was host of the prime-time game show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," briefly television's most popular show at the turn of the century. ABC aired the family-friendly program as often as five times a week. It generated around $1 billion in revenue in its first two years — ABC had said it was the more profitable show in TV history — and helped make Philbin himself a millionaire many times over.

Philbin's question to contestants, "Is that your final answer?" became a national catchphrase. Philbin was even a fashion trendsetter; he put out a line of monochramactic shirts and ties to match what he wore on the set.

"You wait a lifetime for something like that and sometimes it never happens," Philbin told the AP in 1999.

In 2008, he returned briefly to the quiz show format with "Million Dollar Password." He also picked up the Lifetime Achievement Award from the daytime Emmys.

He was the type of TV personality easy to make fun of, and easy to love.

When his son Danny first met his future wife, "we were talking about our families," Danny told USA Today. "I said, 'You know that show Regis and Kathie Lee?' And she said, 'I hate that show.' And I said, 'That's my dad.'"

Yet Philbin was a favorite of a younger generation's ironic icon, David Letterman. When Letterman announced that he had to undergo heart surgery, it was on the air to Philbin, who was also there for Letterman's first day back after his recovery.

Letterman returned the favor, appearing on Philbin's show when he went back on the air in April 2007 after undergoing heart bypass surgery.

"In the same category as (Johnny) Carson. Superlative," Letterman said. "He was on our show a million times, always the best guest we ever had, charming, lovable and could take a punch. When he retired I lost interest in television. I love him."

In the 2008 AP interview, Philbin said he saw "getting the best out of your guests" as "a specialty. ... The time constraints mean you've got to get right to the point, you've got to make it pay off, go to commercial, start again. Play that clip. Say goodbye." He gave his desktop a decisive rap.

"And make it all conversational."

Regis Francis Xavier Philbin grew up in the New York borough of the Bronx, the son of Italian-Irish parents and named for the Roman Catholic boys high school his dad attended. He went to Notre Dame University, and was such an enthusiastic alum, he once said he wanted his ashes scattered there.

After leaving the Navy in 1955, Philbin talked his way into a meeting with the stationmaster at KCOP-TV in Los Angeles. He got a job parking cars, then progressed into work as a stagehand, courier, newswriter and producer of a sports telecast. When its sportscaster didn't show up one day, Philbin filled in.

Philbin got far more on-air experience in San Diego in the early 1960s, when KOGO-TV began producing "The Regis Philbin Show" for a national audience. The program of music and celebrity interviews was taped two weeks before each airing. It was canceled after four months.

In 1967, Philbin was hired as the announcer and sidekick to comic Joey Bishop on his network show. When he heard that he was going to be fired because of poor ratings, Philbin tearfully announced he was leaving on July 12, 1968, walking off during a live broadcast. He returned three days later after letters of support poured in.

He and Bishop had bad blood: Bishop called Philbin an "ingrate" for walking off during a salary dispute and later badmouthing him.

Philbin's second wife, Joy, was Bishop's assistant.

After three years of commuting to St. Louis each week for a local Saturday night show, Philbin became a star in local morning television — first in Los Angeles, then in New York. In 1985, he teamed with Kathie Lee Johnson, a year before she married former football star Frank Gifford, and the show went national in 1988.

Philbin's "sarcastic playfulness" endears him to fans, Good Housekeeping magazine wrote in 2000.

"He's the little guy protesting the injustices of life, from crime waves to paper cuts," the magazine wrote. "The ranting is punctuated with Kathie Lee's familiar cry of 'Oh, Reege,' uttered sometimes in sisterly sympathy and sometimes in teacherly admonishment."

The gentle bickering and eye-rolling exasperation in Philbin and Gifford's onscreen relationship was familiar to anyone in a long-lasting relationship.

"No arguments, no harsh words in all this time," Philbin told a theater audience in 2000. "Well, there was the time I didn't talk to her for two weeks. Didn't want to interrupt her."

Gifford left the show in 2000. After a tryout period for a replacement, soap star Ripa ("All My Children") filled the slot.

The same hustler who parked cars in Hollywood worked just as hard to land the job on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

"I begged my way on," he told People magazine. "There was a short list, and I wasn't on it. I called my agent, and we made a full assault on ABC in L.A."

The audience responded to Philbin's warm, comic touch in the role. He later jokingly referred to himself as the man who saved ABC. It wasn't complete hyperbole: ABC was suffering in the ratings before the game became a smash success. Forbes reported that two-thirds of ABC's operating profit in 2000 was due to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

Philbin appeared to love every minute of it. Even the ultimate arbiter of hip, the MTV Video Awards, asked him to make an appearance.

"It's better to be hot," he told the AP. "It's fun. I know this business. I was perfectly content with my morning show. People would ask me, 'What's next?' There is nothing next. There are no more mountains for me to climb. Believe me when I tell you, all I wanted when I started this show in 1961 was to be a success nationally."

The prime-time game burned out quickly because of overuse and ended in 2002.

Philbin enjoyed a side career as a singer that began when he sang "Pennies from Heaven" to Bing Crosby on Bishop's show. He said a record company called him the next day, and he made an album.

Even though the series "Regis Philbin's Health Styles," on Lifetime in the 1980s, was part of his lengthy resume, Philbin had health issues. Doctors performed an angioplasty to relieve a blocked artery in 1993. He underwent bypass surgery in 2007 at age 75.

He's survived by his wife, Joy, and their daughters J.J. and Joanna Philbin, as well as his daughter Amy Philbin with his first wife, Catherine Faylen, according to People.

FILE - In this Nov. 30, 2016 file photo, Charlie Daniels appears at the Charlie Daniels 80th Birthday Volunteer Jam in Nashville, Tenn. Daniels who had a hit with "Devil Went Down to Georgia" has died at age 83. A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday due to a hemorrhagic stroke. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

Country rocker and fiddler Charlie Daniels dies at age 83

By KRISTIN M. HALL AP Entertainment Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country music firebrand and fiddler Charlie Daniels, who had a hit with "Devil Went Down to Georgia," has died at age 83.

A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee, after doctors said he had a stroke.

He had suffered what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a heart pacemaker implanted in 2013 but continued to perform.

Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline" sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year.

His edgy, early music raised eyebrows in Nashville, with "Long Haired Country Boy" celebrating marijuana smoking and "Uneasy Rider" poking fun at rednecks. But he softened some verses in the 1990s and in 2008 joined the epitome of Nashville's music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry.

LOS ANGELES — Nick Cordero, a Broadway actor who had admirers across the world rallying for his recovery, has died after a battle with COVID-19, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots.

He was 41.

"God has another angel in heaven now," Kloots posted on her official Instagram account Sunday night. "My darling husband passed away this morning. He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth."

Kloots has been regularly updating her social media accounts with news of her husband's ups and downs as he battled the virus and complications, including an amputated leg. She said Cordero battled the disease for 95 days. Kloots recently told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King that Cordero had been so critically ill that he may have needed a double lung transplant.

"That is most likely the possibility," she said. "A 99% chance that he would be needing that in order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live."

In addition to Kloots, Cordero is survived by their 1-year-old son, Elvis.

FILE - This Jan. 12, 2012 file photo shows Hugh Downs at the "Today" show 60th anniversary celebration in New York. Downs, a genial and near-constant presence on television from the 1950s through the 1990s, has died. His family said Downs died of natural causes Wednesday, July 1, 2020, in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 99. Downs was a host of the ‘Today’ show on NBC, worked on the ‘Tonight’ show when Jack Paar was in charge, and hosted the long-running game show "Concentration." (AP Photo/Evan Agostini, File)

Hugh Downs, genial presence on TV news and game shows, dies

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Hugh Downs, the genial, versatile broadcaster who became one of television's most familiar and welcome faces with more than 15,000 hours on news, game and talk shows, has died at age 99.

Downs died of natural causes at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Wednesday, said his great-niece, Molly Shaheen.

"The Guinness Book of World Records" recognized Downs as having logged more hours in front of the camera than any television personality until Regis Philbin passed him in 2004.

He worked on NBC's "Today" and "Tonight" shows, the game show "Concentration," co-hosted the ABC magazine show "20/20" with Barbara Walters and the PBS series "Over Easy" and "Live From Lincoln Center."

His signature sign-off at the end of "20/20" told viewers: "We're in touch, so you be in touch."

"I've worked on so many different shows and done so many shows at the same time," Downs said in a 1986 Associated Press interview. "I once said I'd done everything on radio and television except play-by-play sports. Then I remembered I'd covered a boxing match in Lima, Ohio, in 1939."

Downs began his broadcasting career at the age of 18 as a $12-a-week announcer on a small Ohio radio station. When television came along, he at first looked on it as a gimmick, but quickly realized "it was probably a juggernaut, and I'd better be in on it."

He was an announcer in Chicago, which was a television incubator in the 1950, for "Kukla, Fran & Ollie" and "Hawkins Falls," which he said was television's first soap opera. In 1954, he went to New York for "The Home Show."

In 1961, Newsweek described him as "a gluttonous reader with a first-rate brain that he keeps curried and exercised like a prize poodle."

His reputation was such that he even won the right to approve any commercial he was assigned to read, striving to keep dubious claims off the air.

"My loyalty was with the person tuning in," he said. "It was expedient. If I lost my credibility, what use would I be to a client?"

He showed his principled side again in 1997, when he took a vacation day on "20/20" rather than be part on a show that included an interview with Marv Albert after the sportscaster was caught in a lurid sexual assault scandal.

On Twitter Thursday, CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe noted: "He retired from '20/20' in 1999 and died at age 99 in the year 2020. Sweet symmetry. Rest easy, Hugh Downs. One of the best."

Downs had a particular interest in science, once launching into a monologue on the Paar show on the science underlying water-skiing. It prompted Paar to quip, "Well, Hugh, when you drown, you'll know the reason why."

His interest in problems of the aging — he even earned a postgraduate degree in gerontology — was highlighted in his Public Broadcasting Service series "Over Easy" as well as many of his "20/20" pieces.

"We all suffer in our culture from the idea ... that youth was the big thing," he said.

"There has been kind of a loss of respect for older people, and we lose gleaning wisdom from older people. We lose the ability to see that impairment and decrepitude don't necessarily go along with age."

His work on "20/20" also showed his adventurous spirit, such as the time he got to ride a killer whale, and another time he put on breathing apparatus to swim near a great white shark. There was a hazardous expedition to the South Pole in which one participant nearly fell to his death.

"I'm interested in science, the environment, medicine and certain personalities," he said. "I just do the stories I want to do. I don't want to be just the anchor."

Downs began his work as Paar's second banana in 1957, after a stint as host of NBC's "The Home Show."

In a highly publicized incident in February 1960, Paar stormed off the air in a dispute involving network cutting a Paar "water closet" (toilet) joke the censors disliked. Downs won praise for calmly telling the audience "I'd like to think this is not final" and keeping the live show running until signoff time.

Downs said later that he expected that Paar would at any minute return to the stage "with some punch line or something. He didn't." But Downs said he was eventually grateful for the boost the brouhaha gave his career.

Paar finally returned to the show a few weeks later.

Paar's departure from "Tonight" in 1962 paved the way for Johnny Carson. Downs, meanwhile, began his nine-year run as host of the "Today" show. Walters was a "Today" colleague for part of that time. She admired Downs and praised his generosity and collegiality.

He expressed his views modestly in the 1995 book "The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961": "In a way the less talent you have or deploy, the less chance you have of overexposure. That may be why I have been on network television more than anybody in the world."

FILE - In this May 26, 1963 file photo, Carl Reiner shows holds two Emmy statuettes presented to him as best comedy writer for the "Dick Van Dyke Show," during the annual Emmy Awards presentation in Los Angeles. Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a "second banana" to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy's front ranks as creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and straight man to Mel Brooks’ "2000 Year Old Man," has died, according to reports. Variety reported he died of natural causes on Monday night, June 29, 2020, at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 98. (AP Photo, File)

Carl Reiner, beloved creator of 'Dick Van Dyke Show,' dies

By MIKE STEWART Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a "second banana" to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy's front ranks as creator of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and straight man to Mel Brooks' "2000 Year Old Man," has died. He was 98.

Reiner's assistant Judy Nagy said he died Monday night of natural causes his home in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes.

He was one of show business' best liked men, the tall, bald Reiner was a welcome face on the small and silver screens, in Caesar's 1950s troupe, as the snarling, toupee-wearing Alan Brady of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and in such films as "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

In recent years, he was part of the roguish gang in the "Ocean's Eleven" movies starring George Clooney and appeared in documentaries including "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age" and "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast."

Films he directed included "Oh, God!" starring George Burns and John Denver; "All of Me," with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin; and the 1970 comedy "Where's Poppa?" He was especially proud of his books, including "Enter Laughing," an autobiographical novel later adapted into a film and Broadway show; and "My Anecdotal Life," a memoir published in 2003. He recounted his childhood and creative journey in the 2013 book, "I Remember Me."

But many remember Reiner for "The Dick Van Dyke Show," one of the most popular television series of all time and a model of ensemble playing, physical comedy and timeless, good-natured wit. It starred Van Dyke as a television comedy writer working for a demanding, eccentric boss (Reiner) and living with his wife (Mary Tyler Moore in her first major TV role) and young son in suburban New Rochelle, New York.

"The Van Dyke show is probably the most thrilling of my accomplishments because that was very, very personal," Reiner once said. "It was about me and my wife, living in New Rochelle and working on the Sid Caesar show."

Reiner is the father of actor-director Rob Reiner.

His death was first reported Tuesday by celebrity website TMZ.

FILE - In this June 16, 2012 file photo, Bonnie Pointer attends the 100th Anniversary of The Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Pointer, founding member of the Pointer Sisters, has died. Publicist Roger Neal says Pointer died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles on Monday. She was 69. (Photo by Katy Winn/Invision/AP, File)

Bonnie Pointer, early member of Pointer Sisters, dies at 69

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bonnie Pointer, who in 1969 convinced three of her church-singing siblings to form the Pointer Sisters, which would become one of the biggest acts of the next two decades, died Monday.

The Grammy winner died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, publicist Roger Neal said. She was 69.

"It is with great sadness that I have to announce to the fans of the Pointer Sisters that my sister, Bonnie died this morning," sister Anita Pointer said in a statement. "Our family is devastated, on behalf of my siblings and I and the entire Pointer family, we ask for your prayers at this time."

Bonnie Pointer often sang lead and was an essential member of the group through its early hits including "Yes We Can Can" and "Fairytale." She would leave for a short and modest solo career in 1977 as her sisters went on to have several mega-hits without her.

Ruth, Anita, Bonnie and June, born the daughters of a minister who also had two older sons, grew up singing in his church in Oakland, California.

It was Bonnie, shortly after graduating high school, who first wanted to move away from singing gospel songs into clubs to pursue a professional singing career.

"The Pointer Sisters would never have happened had it not been for Bonnie," Anita Pointer said in her statement.

She convinced younger sister June to join her, and the two began doing gigs together as a duo in 1969. Eventually they'd enlist their two older sisters, who were already married with children, to join them.

The quartet brought unique fusion of funk, soul and 1940s-style jazz, scat and pop to their act, often dressing in a retro style that resembled their forerunners the Andrews Sisters.

They worked as backup singers for Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs, Elvin Bishop and others before releasing their self-titled debut album in 1973, and the song "Yes We Can Can," a funky anthem calling for unity and tolerance, became their breakout hit.

They followed up with "That's A Plenty," which featured an eclectic mix of musical styles ranging from jazz to gospel to pop.

They even delved into country. Bonnie and Anita co-wrote the song "Fairytale" about a crumbling relationship. The song earned them a groundbreaking gig performing as a rare African American act at the Grand Ole Opry, and they would win their first Grammy, for best country vocal performance by a group.

Bonnie Pointer left the group in 1977, signing a solo deal with Motown Records.

"We were devastated," Anita Pointer told The Associated Press in 1990. "We did a show the night she left, but after that, we just stopped. We thought it wasn't going to work without Bonnie."

She would have only modest solo success. Her biggest hit was "Heaven Must Have Sent You," a 1979 disco cover of an earlier Motown hit by the Elgins. It reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979.

After making three albums for Motown, she would retire from the studio, and only perform occasionally.

Her three sisters, who had nearly disbanded when she quit, instead regrouped, shed their retro image for a modern pop sound, and became one of the biggest acts of the 1980s with huge hits including "He's So Shy," "Jump (For My Love)" and "Neutron Dance."

Bonnie married Motown producer Jeffrey Bowen in 1978. The two separated in 2004 and divorced in 2016.

She twice reunited with her sisters for public appearances. Once in 1994, when they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and again in 1996 at a show in Las Vegas.

"She had always told me, mother, I want something for myself," Bonnie's mother Sarah Pointer told Ebony in 1974. "I want to be somebody in this world."

June Pointer, the youngest of the sisters, died in 2006.

In addition to Ruth and Anita, Bonnie Pointer is survived by her two older brothers, Aaron and Fritz.

FILE - This Dec. 10, 1982 file photo shows members of the original cast of the "Leave It To Beaver," from left, Ken Osmond, Tony Dow, Barbara Billingsley and Jerry Mathers during the filming of their TV special, "Still The Beaver," in Los Angeles. Osmond, who played the two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell on TV's "Leave it to Beaver," has died. Osmond's family says he died Monday, May 18, 2020, in Los Angeles. He was 76. (AP Photo/Wally Fong, File)

Ken Osmond, Eddie Haskell on 'Leave It to Beaver,' dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ken Osmond, who on TV's "Leave It to Beaver," played two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell, a role so memorable it left him typecast and led to a second career as a police officer, died Monday.

Osmond died in Los Angeles at age 76, his family said. No cause was given.

"He was an incredibly kind and wonderful father," son Eric Osmond said in a statement. "He had his family gathered around him when he passed. He was loved and will be very missed."

Ken Osmond's Eddie Haskell stood out among many memorable characters on the classic family sitcom "Leave it to Beaver," which ran from 1957 to 1963 on CBS and ABC, but had a decades-long life of reruns and revivals.

Eddie was the best friend of Tony Dow's Wally Cleaver, big brother to Jerry Mathers' Beaver Cleaver. He constantly kissed up to adults, flattering and flirting with Wally and Beaver's mother, and kicked down at his peers, usually in the same scene. He was the closest thing the wholesome show had to a villain, and viewers of all ages loved to hate him.

"He was a terrific guy, he was a terrific actor and his character is probably one that will last forever," Dow told The Associated Press on Monday.

"He was one of the few guys on the show who really played a character and created it," Dow added, chuckling as he mimicked the evil laugh Osmond would unleash when his character was launching one nefarious scheme or another and trying to pull Wally and his younger brother Beaver into it.

Mathers said he will greatly miss his friend of 63 years.

"I have always said that he was the best actor on our show because in real life his personality was so opposite of the character that he so brilliantly portrayed," Mathers said on Twitter.

Osmond was born in Glendale, California, to a carpenter father and a mother who wanted to get him into acting. He got his first role at age 4, working in commercials and as a film extra, and got his first speaking role at 9, appearing mostly in small guest parts on TV series.

The role of Eddie in season one of "Leave It to Beaver" was also supposed to be a one-off guest appearance, but the show's producers and its audience found him so memorable he became a regular, appearing in nearly 100 of the show's 234 episodes.

Osmond returned to making guest appearances on TV shows including "The Munsters" in the late 1960s, but found he was so identified with Eddie Haskell that it was hard to land roles.

He would soon give up acting and become a Los Angeles police officer for more than a decade.

"I was very much typecast. It's a death sentence," Osmond told radio host Stu Stoshak in a 2008 interview on "Stu's Show." "I'm not complaining because Eddie's been too good to me, but I found work hard to come by. In 1968, I bought my first house, in '69 I got married, and we were going to start a family and I needed a job, so I went out and signed up for the LAPD."

LAPD Chief Michel Moore paid tribute to Osmond's police service.

"Ken may have been a famous TV star," Moore said in a statement, "but his real life role as Los Angeles Police Officer was where he made his biggest impact. After his successful run on one of the most popular shows of all time, he chose to protect and to serve the residents of Los Angeles, and I'm proud to have been able to call him a law enforcement partner."

Dow, who was a lifelong friend of Osmond's said "His motorcycle cop stories are terrific." He recalled his favorite involved Osmond and his partner chasing down and cornering a robbery suspect who turned and shot Osmond in the stomach before his partner wounded the man. Although Osmond's bulletproof vest absorbed most of the impact, he still had to go to the hospital.

"And he had to ride in the same ambulance with the guy who shot him," Dow recalled being told.

He would return to TV in 1983, when "Leave It to Beaver" reruns were having a heyday, appearing in the TV movie "Still the Beaver."

A revival series, "The New Leave It to Beaver," came next, with Osmond reprising the role of Haskell alongside Dow and Mathers from 1983 to 1989. Osmond's real-life sons with wife Sandra Purdy, Eric and Christian, played Haskell's sons, who shared their father's smarminess on the series.

In 2014 Osmond would co-author a memoir reflecting on his life as Haskell. It was titled, "Eddie: The Life and Times of America's Preeminent Bad Boy."

FILE - In this Nov. 28, 1976 file photo, CBS sportscaster Phyllis George is seen in New York. Phyllis George, the former Miss America who became a female sportscasting pioneer on CBS's "The NFL Today" and served as the first lady of Kentucky, has died. She was 70. A family spokeswoman said George died Thursday, May 14, 2020, at a Lexington hospital after a long fight with a blood disorder.(AP Photo/Suzanne Vlamis, File)

Phyllis George, female sportscasting pioneer, dies at 70

Phyllis George, the former Miss America who became a female sportscasting pioneer on CBS's "The NFL Today" and served as the first lady of Kentucky, has died. She was 70.

A family spokeswoman said George died Thursday at a Lexington, Kentucky, hospital after a long fight with a blood disorder.

Her children, Lincoln Tyler George Brown and CNN White House correspondent Pamela Ashley Brown, released a joint statement, saying:

"For many, Mom was known by her incredible accomplishments as the pioneering female sportscaster, 50th Miss America and first lady. But this was all before we were born and never how we viewed Mom. To us, she was the most incredible mother we could ever ask for, and it is all of the defining qualities the public never saw, especially against the winds of adversity, that symbolize how extraordinary she is more than anything else. The beauty so many recognized on the outside was a mere fraction of her internal beauty, only to be outdone by an unwavering spirit that allowed her to persevere against all the odds."

Miss America in 1971, George joined Brent Musburger and Irv Cross in 1975 on "The NFL Today." Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder later was added to the cast.

"Phyllis George was special. Her smile lit up millions of homes for the NFL Today," Musburger tweeted. "Phyllis didn't receive nearly enough credit for opening the sports broadcasting door for the dozens of talented women who took her lead and soared."

George spent three seasons on the live pregame show, returned in 1980 and left in 1983, winning plaudits for her warmth of her interviews with star athletes. She also covered horse racing, hosted the entertainment show "People" and co-anchored the "CBS Morning News."

George was briefly married to Hollywood producer Robert Evans in the mid-1970s and to John Y. Brown Jr. from 1979-98. Brown owned Kentucky Fried Chicken and the NBA's Boston Celtics and served as the governor of Kentucky.

"Phyllis was a great asset to Kentucky," Brown told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "We had a great partnership. I think we enjoyed every single day."

From Denton, Texas, George attended the University of North Texas for three years, then went to Texas Christian University after earning a scholarship as Miss Texas in 1970.

In her 2002 memoir, George wrote that a male friend told her sportscasting wouldn't work because it was a man's job. George even acknowledged knowing nothing about the industry and having neither experience nor another female mentor to follow.

None of it stopped her.

George was a friend of minister Norman Vincent Peale and a devout believer in his best-selling philosophy of positive thinking. George credited that approach for launching a defining career she didn't expect — one that saw her range into an astonishing variety of ventures and roles, in media, the film industry, food and beauty products, and as the glamorous first lady of the bluegrass state.

"Saying yes to yourself opens up opportunities that can take you anywhere," George wrote. "Having a mentor in your life who says yes to you is also key. Appreciate your mentors when you're starting out. And later, always give credit to the people who were there with you at the beginning."

ESPN sportscaster Hannah Storm remembered George as "the ultimate trailblazer" who inspired other women by showing that careers in sportscasting could be within their grasp.

"A lot of times when you're dreaming of something as a career option, you have to see it in order to believe it," she said. "And someone has to be first, and that was Phyllis."

Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports, called George's hiring as part of "The NFL Today" team a "groundbreaking decision" that "changed the face of sports television."

"She had an openness and enthusiasm that made her a valuable contributor," Pilson said. "She didn't claim to know a tremendous amount about sports, but she knew about people, which is why her interviews resonated. She could do the best interviews with athletes and family members. She was a warm person and that came through on the set and in the interviews."

George conducted one-on-one interviews with star athletes such as NFL greats Joe Namath and Roger Staubach.

"People were uncomfortable with the idea of seeing a woman on TV talking about sports in a prominent role," Storm said. "But someone has to go first. I give her so much respect for truly her courage. She had to put herself out there. Phyllis George did something out of the norm. And I'm forever grateful for her leading the way."

George wasn't the first but made her entrance around the time that other women were getting their starts reporting on sports, too.

Jane Chastain was hired at CBS in 1974 and became the first female announcer on an NFL telecast that fall.

Lesley Visser became the first female NFL beat writer during a 14-year career at The Boston Globe that started in 1974. She later worked on "The NFL Today" as well as ABC and ESPN, becoming the first woman assigned to "Monday Night Football" in 1998.

Visser said George "always made you feel important and warm. I never heard her talk about anyone in a negative way. She made everything look so easy. She had a magnetic personality."

The industry discovered George after she co-hosted "Candid Camera" and the Miss America pageant. She received a 13-week option from CBS in 1974 without a defined role. But a popular interview with reluctant Boston Celtics star Dave Cowens soon earned her a three-year deal and paved the way to her breakthrough role the next year on "The NFL Today."

"Phyllis George was a great person and a true pioneer for women in television," President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday.

George moved on to co-host the "CBS Morning News" in 1985 but quit after less than eight months. Among the people she interviewed was former first lady Nancy Reagan. She later interviewed President Bill Clinton in 1994 as part of her own prime-time talk show.

As a businesswoman, George founded "Chicken By George," an eight-item line of fresh, marinated chicken breast entrees, and sold it two years later to Geo. A. Hormel & Co. She created "Phyllis George Beauty" in 2003. The cosmetic and skincare product line was sold through a TV home shopping network.

She also wrote several other books and had roles in a pair of Hollywood comedy films.

"Phyllis is a pioneer. Her range is what impresses me the most," former Kentucky and Louisville coach Rick Pitino, now at Iona, wrote in the forward to her memoir, "Never Say Never: Ten lessons to turn you can't into YES I CAN."

"She entered a highly competitive pageant and emerged as Miss America," Pitino wrote. "She became the first national female sports broadcaster. She flourished in the limelight as First Lady in the state of Kentucky. She's been successful in business. And she is a respected humanitarian. Each step along the way, she embraced the mission at hand."

FILE - In this April 26, 2015, file photo, Fred Willard poses in the pressroom at the 42nd annual Daytime Emmy Awards at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. Willard, the comedic actor whose improv style kept him relevant for more than 50 years in films like "This Is Spinal Tap," "Best In Show" and "Anchorman," has died at age 86. Willard's daughter, Hope Mulbarger, said in a statement Saturday, May 16, 2020, that her father died peacefully Friday night. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Fred Willard, the comedic improv-style actor, has died at 86

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fred Willard, the comedic actor whose improv style kept him relevant for more than 50 years in films like "This Is Spinal Tap," "Best In Show" and "Anchorman," has died. He was 86.

Willard's daughter, Hope Mulbarger, said in a statement Saturday that her father died peacefully Friday night. The cause of his death has not been released.

"He kept moving, working and making us happy until the very end," Mulbarger said. "We loved him so very much! We will miss him forever."

Willard was rarely a leading man or even a major supporting character. He specialized in small, scene-stealing appearances.

As an arrogantly clueless sports announcer on "Best In Show," his character seemed to clearly know nothing about the dogs he's supposed to talk about and asks his partner on-air: "How much do you think I can bench?" He also played the character of Frank Dunphy, the goofy father of Phil in the ABC series "Modern Family."

Willard was a four-time Emmy nominee for his roles in "What's Hot, What's Not," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Modern Family" and "The Bold and the Beautiful."

In Pixar's 2008 hit "WALL-E," he voiced the character of Shelby Forthright, the CEO of a ubiquitous big-box chain called Buy'n'Large.

"How lucky that we all got to enjoy Fred Willard's gifts," said actress Jamie Lee Curtis on Twitter. She is married to Christopher Guest who directed the mockumentary films, "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman."

"Thanks for the deep belly laughs Mr. Willard," she continued.

Willard's death comes nearly two years after his wife Mary Willard died at the age of 71. She was a playwright and TV writer, earning four Emmy nominations.

After his wife died, Willard questioned whether he would work again. But the beloved actor was brought on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to mock President Donald Trump's "space force." It was a reprise role of the 1978 NBC show "Space Force."

"There was no man sweeter or funnier," Kimmel said on Twitter. "We were so lucky to know Fred Willard and will miss his many visits."

In 2012, Willard had a brush with the law. The actor was arrested after being suspected of committing a lewd act at a Hollywood adult theater.

Willard was fired from a narrating job and had to complete a diversion program. He called the arrest "very embarrassing" but insisted he did nothing wrong.

"It's the last time I'm going to listen to my wife when she says, `Why don't you go and see a movie?'" Willard said during an appearance on Jimmy Fallon's NBC show "Late Night."

Fallon was sympathetic toward Willard, calling him a "good man" and one of his favorites.

Willard was continually beloved in Hollywood.

"Fred Willard was the funniest person that I've ever worked with," Steve Carell said on Twitter. "He was a sweet, wonderful man."

FILE - In this Jan. 14, 1973, file photo, Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula is carried off the field after his team won the NFL football Super Bowl game 14-7 against the Washington Redskins in Los Angeles. Shula, who won the most games of any NFL coach and led the Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in league history, died Monday, May 4, 2020, at his home in Indian Creek, Fla., the team said. He was 90. (AP Photo/File)

Shula, winningest coach in pro football history, dies at 90

MIAMI — Measuring Don Shula by wins and losses, no NFL coach had a better year. Or career.

He looked the part, thanks to a jutting jaw and glare that would intimidate 150-pound sports writers and 300-pound linemen alike. He led the Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in NFL history, set a league record with 347 victories and coached in six Super Bowls.

Near the end of his career, Shula's biography in the Dolphins' media guide began with a quote from former NFL coach Bum Phillips: "Don Shula can take his'n and beat you'n, and he could take you'n and beat his'n."

Shula died Monday at his home across Biscayne Bay from downtown Miami, the team said. He was 90.

"If there were a Mount Rushmore for the NFL, Don Shula certainly would be chiseled into the granite," Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said in a statement.

Shula surpassed George Halas' league-record 324 victories in 1993 and retired following the 1995 season, his 33rd as an NFL head coach. He entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997, and the induction ceremony took place at Canton, Ohio, 70 miles from his native Grand River.

Shula became the only coach to guide an NFL team through a perfect season when the Dolphins went 17-0 in 1972. They also won the Super Bowl the following season, finishing 15-2.

The 2007 Patriots flirted with matching the perfection of the '72 Dolphins but lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl and finished 18-1.

When asked in 1997 if he was the greatest coach in NFL history, Shula said he didn't know how to measure that, but added, "I always thought that's why they keep statistics and wins and losses."

Shula reached the playoffs in four decades and coached three Hall of Fame quarterbacks: Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese and Dan Marino. During his 26 seasons in Miami he became an institution, and his name adorns an expressway, an athletic club and a steakhouse chain.

"There was no better man or coach in the history of the profession than coach Don Shula," Miami Heat president Pat Riley said in a statement. "He was tough, courageous and an authentic leader with great integrity in his pursuit of perfection, which he achieved!"

But because the Dolphins last reached the Super Bowl after the 1984 season, Shula came under increasing criticism from fans and the media. He was replaced in January 1996 by Jimmy Johnson, and Shula later said the adjustment to retirement was difficult.

"There's such a letdown," he said in 2010. "There's no way you can fill the time you spent as a coach. Life is great after football, but you don't have those emotional ups and downs you had on game day."

Shula's active retirement included plenty of travel and social events. In January 2010, the Dolphins threw him an 80th birthday party at their stadium, and guests included NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and former NFL coaches Marty Schottenheimer and Dan Reeves.

Hall of Fame fullback Larry Csonka was among the '72 Dolphins who threw a surprise party for Shula in December to celebrate his 90th birthday.

"It was the first time in the entire time I'm known him where he was genuinely surprised," Csonka said. "I think he was very happy."

Shula always enjoyed talking about the 17-0 team, and he and his 1972 players drew criticism for the way they savored their unique status each season.

"People think we're a bunch of angry old guys who can't wait for that last undefeated team to get beat," Shula said in 2010. "We're very proud of our record, and if somebody breaks it, I'm going to call that coach and congratulate them. Until they do, it's our record, and we're proud of it."

As for regrets, Shula put not winning a Super Bowl with Marino at the top of the list. They were together for 13 years, and Marino became the most prolific passer in NFL history, but he played on only one AFC championship team — in 1984, his second season.

Shula was born Jan. 4, 1930, and raised in Painesville, Ohio. He played running back at John Carroll University in Cleveland and cornerback in the pros for seven seasons with Cleveland, Baltimore and Washington. He entered coaching as an assistant at Virginia in 1958.

Before his 1970s triumphs with Miami, Shula had a reputation as a coach who thrived during the regular season but couldn't win the big game.

Shula became the youngest head coach in NFL history when the Baltimore Colts hired him in 1963 at age 33. The Colts finished 12-2 the following season and were widely seen as the league's dominant team.

But they lost 27-0 to Cleveland in the title game, and for the next few years continued to come up short.

The humiliation was greatest in the Super Bowl to end the 1968 season. The Colts steamrolled through the NFL, finishing 13-1 and outscoring opponents by a nearly 3-1 margin. After crushing the Browns 34-0 in the title game, they were overwhelming favorites to defeat the Jets of the upstart AFL, which had lost the first two Super Bowls.

But the Colts lost 16-7, blowing numerous scoring opportunities and allowing Jets quarterback Joe Namath to control the game.

The result is still regarded by many as the biggest upset in pro football history, and it contributed to Shula's departure after the 1969 season. In 1970, after the NFL-AFL merger, Shula joined the Dolphins, a fourth-year AFL expansion team that had gone 3-10-1 the previous year.

Miami improved to 10-4 in his first season and made the playoffs for the first time, and the 1971 Dolphins reached the Super Bowl before losing to Dallas. The following season, when Miami took a 16-0 record into the Super Bowl against Washington, Shula considered his legacy on the line.

"If we had won 16 games in a row and lost the Super Bowl, it would have been a disaster, especially for me," he said in a 2007 interview. "That would have been my third Super Bowl loss. I was 0-2 in Super Bowls and people always seemed to bring that up: 'You can't win the big one.'"

The Dolphins beat the Redskins 14-7, then repeated as champions the following year by beating Minnesota in the title game.

After Shula retired, he traveled extensively with his wife, Mary Anne. He would also wrestle with his grandchildren, lose to his wife at gin, read John Grisham novels and fall asleep watching late-night TV.

He supported many charities. The Don Shula Foundation, formed primarily to assist breast cancer research, was established as a tribute to his late wife, Dorothy. They were married for 32 years and raised five children before she died in 1991. Shula married Mary Anne Stephens during a bye week in 1993.

Shula's oldest son, David, coached the Cincinnati Bengals from 1992-96. When Cincinnati played Miami in 1994, it marked the first time in professional sports that a father and son faced each other as head coaches.

Don won, 23-7. Another son, Mike, is a longtime NFL assistant coach and was head coach at Alabama in 2003-06.

Shula spent more than 20 years on the powerful NFL Competition Committee, which evaluates playing rules as well as regulations designed to improve safety.

"If I'm remembered for anything, I hope it's for playing within the rules," Shula once said. "I also hope it will be said that my teams showed class and dignity in victory or defeat."

There were many more victories than defeats. His career record was 347-173-6.

Shula is survived by his second wife, two sons and three daughters.

FILE - This June 15, 2019 file photo shows John Prine performing at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. Prine died Tuesday, April 7, 2020, from complications of the coronavirus. He was 73. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

Celebrated singer-songwriter John Prine has died at 73

By MICHAEL WARREN Associated Press

John Prine, the ingenious singer-songwriter who explored the heartbreaks, indignities and absurdities of everyday life in "Angel from Montgomery," "Sam Stone," "Hello in There" and scores of other indelible tunes, died Tuesday at the age of 73.

His family announced his death from complications from the coronavirus; he died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

His wife Fiona said last month that she had tested positive for COVID-19 and she has since recovered, but her husband was hospitalized on March 26 with coronavirus symptoms. He was put on a ventilator and remained in the intensive care unit for several days.

Winner of a lifetime achievement Grammy earlier this year, Prine was a virtuoso of the soul, if not the body. He sang his conversational lyrics in a voice roughened by a hard-luck life, particularly after throat cancer left him with a disfigured jaw.

He joked that he fumbled so often on the guitar, taught to him as a teenager by his older brother, that people thought he was inventing a new style. But his open-heartedness, eye for detail and sharp and surreal humor brought him the highest admiration from critics, from such peers as Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and from such younger stars as Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves, who even named a song after him.

In 2017, Rolling Stone proclaimed him "The Mark Twain of American songwriting."

Prine began playing as a young Army veteran who invented songs to fight boredom while delivering the U.S. mail in Maywood, Illinois. He and his friend, folk singer Steve Goodman, were still polishing their skills at the Old Town School of Folk Music when Kristofferson, a rising star at the time, heard them sing one night in Chicago, and invited them to share his stage in New York City. The late film critic Roger Ebert, then with the Chicago Sun-Times, also saw one of his shows and declared him an "extraordinary new composer."

Suddenly noticed by America's most popular folk, rock and country singers, Prine signed with Atlantic Records and released his first album in 1971.

"I was really into writing about characters, givin' 'em names," Prine said, reminiscing about his long career in a January 2016 public television interview that was posted on his website.

"You just sit and look around you. You don't have to make up stuff. If you just try to take down the bare description of what's going on, and not try to over-describe something, then it leaves space for the reader or the listener to fill in their experience with it, and they become part of it."

He was among the many promoted as a "New Dylan" and among the few to survive it and find his own way. Few songwriters could equal his wordplay, his empathy or his imagination.

"I try to look through someone else's eyes," he told Ebert in 1970. His characters were common people and confirmed eccentrics, facing the frustrations and pleasures anyone could relate to. "Sam Stone" traces the decline of a drug-addicted Vietnam veteran through the eyes of his little girl. "Donald and Lydia" tells of a tryst between a shy Army private and small-town girl, both vainly searching for "love hidden deep in your heart:"

They made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams

they made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams.

But when they were finished, there was nothing to say,

'cause mostly they made love from ten miles away.

"He writes beautiful songs," Dylan once told MTV producer Bill Flanagan. "I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about Sam Stone the soldier-junkie-daddy, and Donald and Lydia, where people make love from ten miles away -- nobody but Prine could write like that."

Prine's mischief shined in songs like "Illegal Smile," which he swore wasn't about marijuana; "Spanish Pipedream," about a topless waitress with "something up her sleeve;" and "Dear Abby," in which Prine imagines the advice columnist getting fed up with whiners and hypochondriacs.

"You have no complaint," his Abby writes back:

You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't

so listen up Buster, and listen up good

stop wishin' for bad luck and knocking on wood!"

Prine was never a major commercial success, but performed for more than four decades, often selling his records at club appearances where he mentored rising country and bluegrass musicians.

"I felt like I was going door to door meeting the people and cleaning their carpets and selling them a record," he joked in a 1995 Associated Press interview.

Many others adopted his songs. Bonnie Raitt made a signature tune out of "Angel from Montgomery," about the stifled dreams of a lonely housewife, and performed it at the 2020 Grammys ceremony. Bette Midler recorded "Hello in There," Prine's poignant take on old age. Prine wrote "Unwed Fathers" for Tammy Wynette, and "Love Is on a Roll" for Don Williams.

Others who covered Prine's music included Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, John Denver, the Everly Brothers, Carly Simon, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Norah Jones and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Prine himself regarded Dylan and Cash as key influences, bridges between folk and country whose duet on Dylan's country rock album "Nashville Skyline" made Prine feel there was a place for him in contemporary music. Though mostly raised in Maywood, he spent summers in Paradise, Kentucky, and felt so great an affinity to his family's roots there he would call himself "pure Kentuckian."

Prine was married three times, and appreciated a relationship that lasted. In 1999, he and Iris DeMent shared vocals on the classic title track of his album "In Spite of Ourselves," a ribald tribute to an old married couple.

In spite of ourselves we'll end up a-sittin' on a rainbow

Against all odds, honey we're the big door-prize

We're gonna spite our noses right off of our faces

There won't be nothin' but big ol' hearts dancin' in our eyes

Prine preferred songs about feelings to topical music, but he did respond at times to the day's headlines. Prine's parents had moved to suburban Chicago from Paradise, a coal town ravaged by strip mining that inspired one of his most cutting protest songs, "Paradise." It appeared on his first album, along with "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," which criticized what he saw as false patriotism surrounding the Vietnam War.

Many years later, as President George W. Bush sent soldiers to war, Prine had a song for that, too. In "Some Humans Ain't Human," he wrote: "You're feeling your freedom, and the world's off your back, some cowboy from Texas, starts his own war in Iraq."

Prine's off-hand charisma made him a natural for movies. He appeared in the John Mellencamp film "Falling From Grace," and in Billy Bob Thornton's "Daddy and Them." His other Grammy Awards include Best Contemporary Folk Recording for his 1991 album "The Missing Years," with guest vocalists including Raitt, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Phil Everly. He won Best Traditional Folk Album in 2004 for "Beautiful Dreamer."

Prine didn't let illness stop him from performing or recording. In 2013, long after surviving throat cancer, he was diagnosed with an unrelated and operable form of lung cancer, but he bounced back from that, too, often sharing the stage with DeMent and other younger artists. On the playful talking blues "When I Get to Heaven," from the 2018 album "The Tree of Forgiveness," he vowed to have the last laugh for all eternity.

When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand

Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand

Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band

Check into a swell hotel; ain't the afterlife grand?

His survived by his wife, Fiona, two sons Jack and Tommy, his stepson Jody and three grandchildren.

FILE - In this B/W file photo dated March 25, 1964, British actor Sean Connery kisses actress Honor Blackman during a party at Pinewood Film Studios, in Iver Heath, England. Blackman, the actor best-known for playing Bond girl Pussy Galore, hasdied of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus, aged 94, according to an announcement Monday April 6, 2020. (AP Photo, FILE)

Honor Blackman, who played Bond's Pussy Galore, dies at 94

NEW YORK (AP) — Honor Blackman, the potent British actress who took James Bond's breath away as Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger" and who starred as the leather-clad, judo-flipping Cathy Gale in "The Avengers," has died. She was 94.

Blackman's family said in a statement Monday that she died peacefully of natural causes at her home in Lewes, in southeastern England.

The honey-voiced Blackman first became a household name the 1960s spy TV series "The Avengers." She joined the show in the second season as Cathy Gale, the leather-wearing anthropologist with martial arts skills.

But Blackman's most famous role was as Pussy Galore in 1964's "Goldfinger," the third Bond movie. In it, she made an impression from the start, memorably introducing herself to Sean Connery's just awoken James Bond.

"Who are you?" Bond asks.

"I'm Pussy Galore."

"I must be dreaming," he responds, smiling to himself.

Blackman was 39 when she landed the role of Bond's love interest, and she long maintained the term of "Bond girl" didn't apply to her. In the film, Pussy Galore is the leader of a group of women aviators enlisted by the villain Auric Goldfinger. She uses judo (a skill carried over from "The Avengers") to attack Bond, who later holds her down to kiss her.

Blackman considered Pussy Galore a kind of early feminist, and a different breed than the average Bond woman.

"In so many of the films, the girls just looked at James and fell flat on their backs," Blackman told the magazine TV Times in 2014. "Yet Pussy Galore was a career woman — a pilot who had her own air force, which was very impressive. She was never a bimbo."

The character's double-entendre name was one producers said they had to convince censors to permit. But Pussy Galore has regularly ranked as among the most popular "Bond women."

Blackman is survived by two children and four grandchildren.

FILE - In this June 21, 2006 file photo, singer-songwriter Bill Withers poses in his office in Beverly Hills, Calif. Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including "Lean On Me," "Lovely Day" and "Ain't No Sunshine," died in Los Angeles from heart complications on Monday, March 30, 2020. He was 81. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

'Lean On Me,' 'Lovely Day' singer Bill Withers dies at 81

Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including " Lean On Me, " "Lovely Day" and "Ain't No Sunshine," has died from heart complications, his family said in a statement to The Associated Press. He was 81.

The three-time Grammy Award winner, who withdrew from making music in the mid-1980s, died on Monday in Los Angeles, the statement said. His death comes as the public has drawn inspiration from his music during the coronavirus pandemic, with health care workers, choirs, artists and more posting their own renditions on "Lean on Me" to help get through the difficult times.

"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved, devoted husband and father. A solitary man with a heart driven to connect to the world at large, with his poetry and music, he spoke honestly to people and connected them to each other," the family statement read. "As private a life as he lived close to intimate family and friends, his music forever belongs to the world. In this difficult time, we pray his music offers comfort and entertainment as fans hold tight to loved ones."

Withers' songs during his brief career have become the soundtracks of countless engagements, weddings and backyard parties. They have powerful melodies and perfect grooves melded with a smooth voice that conveys honesty and complex emotions without vocal acrobatics.

"Lean On Me," a paean to friendship, was performed at the inaugurations of both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Lean on Me" are among Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

"He's the last African-American Everyman," musician and band leader Questlove told Rolling Stone in 2015. "Bill Withers is the closest thing black people have to a Bruce Springsteen."

Withers, who overcame a childhood stutter, was born the last of six children in the coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia. After his parents divorced when he was 3, Withers was raised by his mother's family in nearby Beckley.

He joined the Navy at 17 and spent nine years in the service as an aircraft mechanic installing toilets. After his discharge, he moved to Los Angeles, worked at an aircraft parts factory, bought a guitar at a pawn shop and recorded demos of his tunes in hopes of landing a recording contract.

In 1971, signed to Sussex Records, he put out his first album, "Just As I Am," with the legendary Booker T. Jones at the helm. It had the hits "Grandma's Hands" and "Ain't No Sunshine," which was inspired by the Jack Lemmon film "Days of Wine and Roses." He was photographed on the cover, smiling and holding his lunch pail.

"Ain't No Sunshine" was originally released as the B-side of his debut single, "Harlem." But radio DJs flipped the disc and the song climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard charts and spent a total of 16 weeks in the top 40.

Withers went on to generate more hits a year later with the inspirational "Lean On Me," the menacing "Who Is He (and What Is He to You)" and the slinky "Use Me" on his second album, "Still Bill."

Later would come the striking " Lovely Day," co-written with Skip Scarborough and featuring Withers holding the word "day" for almost 19 seconds, and "Just The Two Of Us," co-written with Ralph MacDonald and William Salter. His "Live at Carnegie Hall" in 1973 made Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Live Albums of All Time.

"The hardest thing in songwriting is to be simple and yet profound. And Bill seemed to understand, intrinsically and instinctively, how to do that," Sting said in "Still Bill," a 2010 documentary of Withers.

But Withers' career when Sussex Records went bankrupt and he was scooped up by Columbia Records. He no longer had complete control over his music and chaffed when it was suggested he do an Elvis cover. His new executives found Withers difficult.

None of his Columbia albums reached the Top 40 except for 1977's "Menagerie," which produced "Lovely Day." (His hit duet with Grover Washington Jr. "Just the Two of Us" was on Washington's label). Withers' last album was 1985's "Watching You Watching Me."

Though his songs often dealt with relationships, Withers also wrote ones with social commentary, including "Better Off Dead" about an alcoholic's suicide, and "I Can't Write Left-Handed," about an injured Vietnam War veteran.

He was awarded Grammys as a songwriter for "Ain't No Sunshine" in 1971 and for "Just The Two Of Us" in 1981. In 1987, Bill received his ninth Grammy nomination and third Grammy as a songwriter for the re-recording of the 1972 hit " Lean On Me" by Club Nouveau.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 by Stevie Wonder. Withers thanked his wife as well as the R&B pioneers who helped his career like Ray Jackson, Al Bell and Booker T. Jones. He also got in a few jabs at the record industry, saying A&R stood for "antagonistic and redundant."

His music has been sampled and covered by such artists as BlackStreet's "No Diggity," Will Smith's version of " Just The Two Of Us, " Black Eyed Peas' "Bridging The Gap" and Twista's "Sunshine." The song "Lean on Me" was the title theme of a 1989 movie starring Morgan Freeman.

His songs are often used on the big screen, including "The Hangover," "28 Days," "American Beauty," "Jerry Maguire," "Crooklyn," "Flight," "Beauty Shop," "The Secret Life of Pets" and "Flight."

"I'm not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don't think I've done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia," Withers told Rolling Stone in 2015.

He is survived by his wife, Marcia, and children, Todd and Kori.

This April 28, 2019, file photo, shows Ellis Marsalis during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Wednesday, April 1, 2020, that Marsalis has died. He was 85. (AP Photo/Sophia Germer, File)

Jazz great Ellis Marsalis Jr. dead, 85; COVID involved

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Ellis Marsalis Jr., the jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan, died late Wednesday from pneumonia brought on by the new coronavirus, leaving six sons and a deep legacy. He was 85.

"My dad was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father. He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be," Branford said.

Four of the jazz patriarch's six sons are musicians: Wynton, a Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning trumpeter, is America's most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of jazz at New York's Lincoln Center. Branford, a saxophonist, has won three Grammies, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, a trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, a percussionist, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music wasn't his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore. Their brother Mboya has autism. Marsalis' wife, Dolores, died in 2017.

"Pneumonia was the actual thing that caused his demise. But it was pneumonia brought on by COVID-19," Ellis Marsalis III said in an Associated Press phone interview.

He said he drove Sunday from Baltimore to be with his father, who was hospitalized Saturday in Louisiana, which has been hit hard by the outbreak. Others in the family spent time with him, too.

"He went out the way he lived: embracing reality," Wynton tweeted, alongside pictures of his father.

Branford's statement included a text he said he got from Harvard Law Professor David Wilkins: "We can all marvel at the sheer audacity of a man who believed he could teach his black boys to be excellent in a world that denied that very possibility, and then watch them go on to redefine what excellence means for all time."

In a statement, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said of the man who continued to perform regularly until December: "Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz. He was a teacher, a father, and an icon — and words aren't sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world."

Because Marsalis opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous — Wynton has won nine Grammies and been nominated 33 times — and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and tour.

"He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work," said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio's American Routes and a Tulane University anthropology professor.

The Marsalis "family band" seldom played together when the boys were younger but went on tour in 2003 in a spinoff of a family celebration, which became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.

Harry Connick Jr., one of his students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He's one of many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through Marsalis' classrooms. Others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.

Marsalis was born in New Orleans, son of the operator of a hotel where he met touring black musicians who couldn't stay at the segregated downtown hotels where they performed. He played saxophone in high school; he also played piano by the time he went to Dillard University.

Although New Orleans was steeped in traditional jazz, and rock 'n' roll was the new sound in the 1950s, Marsalis preferred bebop and modern jazz.

Spitzer described Marsalis as a "modernist in a town of traditionalists."

"His great love was jazz a la bebop — he was a lover of Thelonious Monk and the idea that bebop was a music of freedom. But when he had to feed his family, he played R&B and soul and rock 'n' roll on Bourbon Street," Spitzer said.

The musician's college quartet included drummer Ed Blackwell, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and saxophonist Harold Battiste.

Ornette Coleman was in town at the time. In 1956, when Coleman headed to California, Marsalis and the others went along, but after a few months Marsalis returned home. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune years later, when he and Coleman were old men, that he never figured out what a pianist could do behind the free form of Coleman's jazz.

Back in New Orleans, Marsalis joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to accompany soloists on the service's weekly TV programs on CBS in New York. There, he said, he learned to handle all kinds of music styles.

Returning home, he worked at the Playboy Club and ventured into running his own club, which went bust. In 1967 trumpeter Al Hirt hired him. When not on Bourbon Street, Hirt's band appeared on national TV — headline shows on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.

Marsalis got into education about the same time, teaching improvisation at Xavier University in New Orleans. In the mid-1970s, he joined the faculty at the New Orleans magnet high school and influenced a new generation of jazz musicians.

When asked how he could teach something as free-wheeling as jazz improvisation, Marsalis once said, "We don't teach jazz, we teach students."

In 1986 he moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. In 1989, the University of New Orleans lured him back to set up a jazz studies program.

Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001 but continued performing, particularly at Snug Harbor, a small club that anchored the city's contemporary jazz scene — frequently backing young promising musicians.

His melodic style, with running improvisations in the right hand, has been described variously as romantic, contemporary, or simply "Louisiana jazz." He was always on acoustic piano, never electric, and even in interpreting old standards there's a clear link to the driving bebop chords and rhythms of his early years.

He founded a record company, ELM, but his recording was limited until his sons became famous. After that he joined them and others on mainstream labels and headlined his own releases, many full of his own compositions.

He often played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. And for more than three decades he played two 75-minute sets every Friday night at Snug Harbor until he decided it was exhausting. Even then, he still performed on occasion as a special guest.

Ellis III said his father taught him the meaning of integrity before he even knew the word.

He and Delfeayo, neither of them yet 10, had gone to hear their father play at a club. Only one man — sleeping and drunk — was in the audience for the second set. The boys asked why they couldn't leave.

"He looked at us and said, 'I can't leave. I have a gig.' While he's playing, he said, 'A gig is a deal. I'm paid to play this set. I'm going to play this set. It doesn't matter that nobody's here.' "

FILE - This Aug. 22, 2018 file photo shows Joe Diffie performing at the 12th annual ACM Honors in Nashville, Tenn. A publicist for Diffie says the country singer has tested positive for COVID-19. Diffie is under the care of medical professionals and is receiving treatment. (Photo by Al Wagner/Invision/AP, File)

Country singer Joe Diffie dies of coronavirus complications

NEW YORK (AP) — Country singer Joe Diffie, who had a string of hits in the 1990s with chart-topping ballads and honky-tonk singles like "Home" and "Pickup Man," has died after testing positive for COVID-19. He was 61.

Diffie on Friday announced he had contracted the coronavirus, becoming the first country star to go public with such a diagnosis. Diffie's publicist Scott Adkins said the singer died Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee, due to complications from the virus.

Diffie, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a member of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 25 years. His hits included "Honky Tonk Attitude," "Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I Die)," "Bigger Than the Beatles" and "If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)."

"Country music lost one of the good guys today," Naomi Judd said in a statement.

Diffie's mid-90s albums "Honky Tonk Attitude" and "Third Rock From the Sun" went platinum. Eighteen of Diffie's singles landed in the top 10 on the country charts, with five going No. 1. In his 2013 single "1994," Jason Aldean name-checked the '90s country mainstay.

Diffie shared in a Grammy award for best country collaboration for the song "Same Old Train," with Merle Haggard, Marty Stuart and others. His last solo album was 2010's "The Bluegrass Album: Homecoming."

"Joe Diffie, one of our best singers and my buddy, is gone," Tanya Tucker said in a statement. "We are the same age, so it's very scary. I will miss his voice, his laughter, his songs."

"Joe was a real true honky tonk hero to every country artist alive today," singer John Rich said in a statement. "No one sang our music better than he did, and to see his life and artistry cut short is beyond tragic. He was loved, cherished and respected by all of country music and beyond."

Toby Keith extended his condolences to Diffie's family, saying in a statement, "A great traditional voice will live on cuz I'm putting his music on now. Here's a beer to ya, Joe. Go get your reward."

Deanna Carter said she was "shell shocked" by the news and had hoped to perform again with Diffie this year. "He was a powerhouse that stopped people in their tracks, both on and off stage," she said in a statement.

Diffie is survived by his wife, Tara Terpening Diffie, and seven children from four marriages.

FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2008, file photo, the Harlem Globetrotters' Fred "Curly" Neal performs during a timeout in the second quarter in an NBA basketball game between the Indiana Pacers and the Phoenix Suns in Phoenix. Neal, the dribbling wizard who entertained millions with the Harlem Globetrotters for parts of three decades, has died the Globetrotters announced Thursday, March 26, 2020. He was 77. Neal played for the Globetrotters from 1963-85, appearing in more than 6,000 games in 97 countries for the exhibition team known for its combination of comedy and athleticism. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

Harlem Globetrotters great Curly Neal dies at 77

Fred "Curly" Neal, the dribbling wizard who entertained millions with the Harlem Globetrotters for parts of three decades, has died. He was 77.

The Globetrotters said Neal died in his home outside of Houston on Thursday morning.

"We have lost one of the most genuine human beings the world has ever known," Globetrotters general manager Jeff Munn said in a statement on Twitter. "Curly's basketball skill was unrivaled by most, and his warm heart and huge smile brought joy to families worldwide."

Neal played for the Globetrotters from 1963-85, appearing in more than 6,000 games in 97 countries for the exhibition team known for its combination of comedy and athleticism. He became one of five Globetrotters to have his jersey retired when his No. 22 was lifted to the rafters during a special ceremony at Madison Square Garden in 2008.

Neal was a crowd favorite with his trademark shaved head, infectious smile and ability to dribble circles around would-be defenders. He was a key player during the Globetrotters' most popular era in the '70s and '80s, appearing on TV shows and specials like "The Ed Sullivan Show," "Love Boat" and "Gilligan's Island."

Neal and the Globetrotters also appeared in numerous TV commercials, episodes of "Scooby-Doo" and had their own cartoon series.

"Hard to express how much joy Curly Neal brought to my life growing up. RIP to a legend," Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr tweeted.

Neal was a star high school player in Greensboro, North Carolina, and led Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association title after averaging 23 points per game as a senior. He was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in a 2008 class that included North Carolina coach Roy Williams.

Neal also was inducted into the Globetrotters' Legends ring in 1993 and continued to make appearances for them as an "Ambassador of Goodwill."

FILE - This May 17, 1989 file photo shows Kenny Rogers posing for a portrait in Los Angeles. Rogers, who embodied "The Gambler" persona and whose musical career spanned jazz, folk, country and pop, has died at 81. A representative says Rogers died at home in Georgia on Friday, March 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Bob Galbraith, File)

Crossover country superstar Kenny Rogers dies at 81

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as "Lucille," "Lady" and "Islands in the Stream" and embraced his persona as "The Gambler" on records and on TV, died Friday night. He was 81.

He died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.

The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on "The Gambler" and other songs, making him a superstar in the '70s and '80s. Rogers thrived for some 60 years before retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

"You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don't invite comparison," Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. "And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. So I found something that I could do that didn't invite comparison to them. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. But that was never my issue."

His "Islands in the Stream" duet partner Dolly Parton posted a video on Twitter on Saturday morning, choking up as she held a picture of the two of them together. "I loved Kenny with all my heart and my heart is broken and a big ole chunk of it is gone with him today," Parton said in the video.

"Kenny was one of those artists who transcended beyond one format and geographic borders," says Sarah Trahern, chief executive officer of the Country Music Association. "He was a global superstar who helped introduce country music to audiences all around the world."

Rogers was a five-time CMA Award winner, as well as the recipient of the CMA's Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, the same year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He received 10 awards from the Academy of Country Music. He sold more than 47 million records in the United States alone, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

A true rags-to-riches story, Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called "That Crazy Feeling," under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.

But his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town," a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.

After the group broke up in 1974, Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad "Lucille," in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Rogers his first Grammy. Suddenly the star, Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade.

"The Gambler," the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.

"I think the best that any songwriter could hope for is to have Kenny Rogers sing one of your songs," said Schlitz, who also co-wrote the other Parton-Rogers duet "You Can't Make Old Friends." "He gave so many career songs to so many of us."

Schlitz noted that some of Rogers' biggest hits were songs that had been recorded previously, but his versions became the most popular. "The Gambler" had been recorded six other times before Rogers and "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town," by Mel Tillis, was also recorded by other artists before Rogers.

Other hits included "You Decorated My Life," "Every Time Two Fools Collide" with Dottie West, "Don't Fall In Love with a Dreamer" with Kim Carnes, and "Coward of the County." One of his biggest successes was "Lady," written by Lionel Richie, a chart topper for six weeks straight in 1980. Richie said in a 2017 interview with the AP that he often didn't finish songs until he had already pitched them, which was the case for "Lady."

"In the beginning, the song was called, 'Baby,'" Richie said. "And because when I first sat with him, for the first 30 minutes, all he talked about was he just got married to a real lady. A country guy like him is married to a lady. So, he said, 'By the way, what's the name of the song?'" Richie replies: "Lady."

Over the years, Rogers worked often with female duet partners, most memorably, Dolly Parton. The two were paired at the suggestion of the Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, who wrote "Islands in the Stream."

"Barry was producing an album on me and he gave me this song," Rogers told the AP in 2017. "And I went and learned it and went into the studio and sang it for four days. And I finally looked at him and said, 'Barry, I don't even like this song anymore.' And he said, 'You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.' I thought, 'Man, that guy is a visionary.'"

Coincidentally, Parton was actually in the same recording studio in Los Angeles when the idea came up.

"From the moment she marched into that room, that song never sounded the same," Rogers said. "It took on a whole new spirit."

The two singers toured together, including in Australia and New Zealand in 1984 and 1987, and were featured in a HBO concert special. Over the years the two would continue to record together, including their last duet, "You Can't Make Old Friends," which was released in 2013. Parton reprised "Islands in the Stream" with Rogers during his all-star retirement concert held in Nashville in October 2017.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavors over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, "Making It With Music." He had a chain of restaurants called Kenny Rogers Roasters and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusiCares, and was part of the all-star "We are the World" recording for famine relief.

By the '90s, his ability to chart hits had waned, although he still remained a popular live entertainer with regular touring. Still he was an inventive businessman and never stopped trying to find his way back onto the charts.

At the age of 61, Rogers had a brief comeback on the country charts in 2000 with a hit song "Buy Me A Rose," thanks to his other favorite medium, television. Producers of the series "Touched By An Angel" wanted him to appear in an episode, and one of his managers suggested the episode be based on his latest single. That cross-promotional event earned him his first No. 1 country song in 13 years.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Wanda, and his sons Justin, Jordan, Chris and Kenny Jr., as well as two brothers, a sister and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, his representative said. The family is planning a private service "out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency," a statement posted early Saturday read. A public memorial will be held at a later date.

FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, Lyle Waggoner arrives at the "The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special" in Los Angeles. Waggoner, who played comic foil on the show, has died. He was 84. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

Lyle Waggoner, foil on 'The Carol Burnett Show,' dies at 84

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lyle Waggoner, who used his good looks to comic effect on "The Carol Burnett Show," partnered with a superhero on "Wonder Woman" and was the first centerfold for Playgirl magazine, died Tuesday. He was 84.

Waggoner, who was battling cancer, died peacefully Tuesday at his Los Angeles-area home with his wife of 60 years, Sharon, at his side, according to a family statement.

A household name in the 1970s, Waggoner went on to become a successful entrepreneur. He built a behind-the-scenes business that provides custom trailers that keep stars comfortable during production breaks. Playing on his surname, he called it Star Waggons.

In the mid-1960s, the Kansas-born Waggoner was appearing in run-of-the-mill movies such as "Swamp Country" and "The Catalina Caper" and was a finalist to play "Batman" in the campy TV series that eventually starred Adam West. Then he was called to audition for Burnett's variety show.

The actress-comedian recalled that she wanted an announcer for the show who could do more than introduce the commercials. He had to also be good-looking, so she could do her ugly-duckling, romance-besotted character with him, and funny, so he could contribute laughs.

"In walked Lyle Waggoner," she recalled in her 2010 book, "This Time Together." "Gorgeous? Yes. But so much more. He was incredibly funny. He had a sly, tongue-in-cheek delivery that told you he was putting himself on and not taking himself seriously."

As the series evolved, she said, he showed such great comic instincts that he got roles in sketches and became a full member of the cast. He stayed with the show from its beginning in 1967 to 1974 (it ran on CBS another four years.)

Along the way, he made history of sorts in 1973 when the fledgling Playgirl magazine chose him as his first centerfold, calling him "the stuff of which sexual fantasies are made, a 6-foot-4 hunk of gorgeous beefcake." The Chicago Tribune studied his unclothed but discreet pose behind a desk, and reported he looked "slightly embarrassed at having it widely known that he sits at his desk in the nude."

In 1976 Waggoner was picked to star in "Wonder Woman," based on the venerable comic book heroine. Lynda Carter was Wonder Woman, who came from a lost island where she was one of a band of Amazon women with superpowers. Maj. Steve Trevor (Waggoner), crashed onto the island during World War II. Wonder Woman joined him on his return to the United States, where she mostly fought Nazi agents with her secret powers while posing as Steve's secretary.

In 1977 "Wonder Woman" moved from ABC to CBS as "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman" and from the '40s to contemporary times, with Carter still the superhero and Waggoner as Steve Trevor Jr., his previous character's son. The series ended in 1979 and Waggoner focused on his rental company, with acting jobs on the side.

"I was always looking for a backup because I knew the (television) series; they don't last forever," he told a CNBC interviewer in 2002. "They can yank the rug out from under you at any time."

He got the idea while working on "Wonder Woman," when he was assigned a motor home rented from an individual. When Waggoner asked the studio if they would rent a motor home from him, he bought one and started charging for it. That gave rise to Star Waggons, which were up to 40 feet long, cost as much as $100,000 and included carpeting, leather easy chairs and satellite television.

He eventually had hundreds of them, customized to meet special requests. Star Waggons covered mirrors at Steven Spielberg's request, changed a dinette to a makeup area for Teri Hatcher and even switched a trailer that Jaclyn Smith got "bad vibes" in. Martin Sheen, who played the president in "The West Wing," and a real president, Bill Clinton, both used them; Clinton during a 1996 trip to California.

"I used to go on location and sit outside in a canvas chair with a fold-down counter as a makeup station," Waggoner told The Associated Press in 1998. "Now we have these 40-foot, eight-station electronic slide-out rooms with surround sound and CD players." "Our job is to spoil the actors."

Waggoner continued to perform occasionally, appearing in TV specials starring old pal Burnett and guest starring on shows such as "Murder, She Wrote," "Ellen" and "Love Boat."

Waggoner, who was born in April 1935, is survived by his wife, their two sons, Jason and Beau, and four grandchildren. Services were pending for Los Angeles and Wyoming, the family said.

FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2008 file photo, actor Stuart Whitman arrives at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival black-tie gala fundraiser in Santa Barbara, Calif. Whitman, who appeared in hundreds of films and television shows, died Monday in Montecito, Calif. at 92. (AP Photo/Phil Klein, file)

Oscar-nominated actor Stuart Whitman dead at 92

NEW YORK (AP) — Stuart Whitman, a prolific lead and character actor who appeared in hundreds of film and television productions and received an Oscar nomination as a pedophile in the 1961 drama "The Mark," has died.

Whitman died Monday in Montecito, California, at age 92. Son Justin Whitman said that he died of natural causes.

Dark-haired and rugged, with enough of a resemblance to Clark Gable that he was sometimes compared to the "Gone With the Wind" star, Whitman was a steady presence in Westerns, war movies and other action films. His credits included "The Longest Day," "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," "The Sound and the Fury" and "Ten North Frederick." On television, he starred in the brief-lived series "Cimarron Strip" and also worked on "Murder, She Wrote," "The Streets of San Francisco" and "The F.B.I."

His greatest acclaim came for "The Mark," although he was not the original choice for his role: Richard Burton dropped out at the last minute. The film also starred Rod Steiger and Maria Schell.

Whitman was a San Francisco native who had wanted to act since childhood. He started out as a Hollywood extra, appearing without credit "In the Day the Earth Stood Still," "Brigadoon" and other movies. In a 1961 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he placed himself in the tradition of actors who relied less on versatility than on an established persona.

"It's the image that makes a star. John Wayne is a great example of a super actor. Gary Cooper is another one," he said. "My image? I think it's being free and easy and all man. I say to myself I want to become an actor, I want to lose myself in each role. But that's not the way to become an actor."

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 16, 2015 file photo, actor Max Von Sydow attends the Lumiere Award ceremony of the 7th Lumiere Festival in Lyon, central France. Max von Sydow, the self-described "shy boy"-turned-actor who played the priest in the horror classic "The Exorcist," has died. He was 90, it was reported on Monday, March 9, 2020. He was known to art house audiences through his work with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. But it was his role as the devil-evicting priest in William Friedkin's controversial 1973 film "The Exorcist" that brought him to international attention. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)

'Exorcist' actor Max von Sydow dies at age 90

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Max von Sydow, the self-described "shy boy"-turned-actor known to art house audiences through his work with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and later to moviegoers everywhere when he played the priest in the horror classic "The Exorcist," has died. He was 90.

His agent Jean Diamond said Monday the actor, who was born in Sweden but became a French citizen in 2002, died Sunday

From his 1949 screen debut in the Swedish film "Only a Mother," von Sydow starred in close to 200 film and TV productions, remaining active well into his 80s. He received two Academy Award nominations— for best actor in 1988 for his gripping portrayal of an impoverished farmer in "Pelle the Conqueror," and best supporting actor in 2012 for his role as a mute in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close." More recently, he received an Emmy nomination for his work as the Three-Eyed Raven in HBO's "Game of Thrones."

He was a mainstay in nearly a dozen classic, angst-ridden films by Bergman, including "Wild Strawberries," "Shame" and the 1957 release "The Seventh Seal," in which he was featured in one of Bergman's most memorable scenes as the medieval knight who plays a game of chess against the grim reaper.

He made his Hollywood debut as Jesus in the 1965 film "The Greatest Story Ever Told," but gained widespread international fame as the devil-evicting priest in William Friedkin's controversial 1973 film "The Exorcist." Tall and lanky, with sullen blue eyes, a narrow face, pale complexion and a deep and accented speaking voice, von Sydow was often typecast in Hollywood as the sophisticated villain.

"What I as an actor look for is a variety of parts. It is very boring to be stuck in more or less one type of character," he once said in an interview.

In 1980, von Sydow starred as the evil emperor Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon." He turned down the role as the sinister Dr. No in the first James Bond film with the same name, but later appeared as the cat-stroking villain Ernst Blofeld in the 1983 "Never Say Never Again," starring Sean Connery as Bond.

He also played a tormented painter in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" and portrayed the devil in "Needful Things," a 1991 horror film based on a novel by Stephen King. In 2015, he appeared briefly in the blockbuster "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."

While his characters were often sinister, tormented or evil, the soft-spoken von Sydow said he became an actor to overcome his own shyness.

"I was a very shy boy when I was a kid," he said in an Associated Press interview. "When I started acting in an amateur group in high school, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, I suddenly got a tool in my hand that was wonderful. I was allowed to express all kinds of strange things that I never dared to express before. Now I could do it with the character as a shield, as a defense, and as an excuse.

"I think that for many years I used my profession as some kind of a mental therapy."

Von Sydow was born April 10, 1929, into a family of academics in the southern Swedish city of Lund. He was baptized Carl Adolf von Sydow, but later changed his first name to Max, saying his given name was "not a good name" after World War II.

Although his family was not interested in theater, he said his father was a master of telling adventure stories that fueled his imagination as a child. He decided he wanted to be an actor and formed a theater society with his friends after seeing his first play, William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," at age 14.

He studied at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm and acted in small municipality theaters in Sweden for eight years — an experience he later described as crucial for his career.

"I'm very grateful to the schooling I had in Sweden because in order to learn acting you have to work, work, work," he said. "I think I owe very much to those years."

It was during this period he first met Bergman. In addition to "The Seventh Seal," he would star in 10 other Bergman films, including "The Magician," "The Virgin Spring" and "Wild Strawberries," and develop a close relationship with Sweden's most famous moviemaker.

"I can't say exactly what influence he's had on me, but it must be enormous," he said of Bergman. "We did most of that work when we were much younger. We were free — he hadn't yet become world famous and I was just a regular stage actor with a few film roles to my credit. We worked hard and had a lot of fun."

Von Sydow married Swedish actress Christina Olin in 1951 and had two sons, Clas and Henrik. The couple later divorced and he remarried French filmmaker Catherine Brelet in 1997 with whom he had two more sons, Yvan and Cedric.

FILE - This Nov. 1, 2001 file photo shows host Bobbie Battista preparing for the airing of the show "TalkBack Live" in Atlanta. Battista, who was among the original anchors for CNN Headline News and hosted CNN's "TalkBack Live," died Tuesday, March 3, 2020, after a four-year battle with cervical cancer, family spokeswoman Wendy Guarisco told CNN. She was 67. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

Original CNN anchor Bobbie Battista dies of cancer in Davenport

LOS ANGELES — Bobbie Battista, who was among the original anchors for CNN Headline News and hosted CNN's "TalkBack Live," has died. She was 67.

Battista died Tuesday in Davenport after a four-year battle with cervical cancer, family spokeswoman Wendy Guarisco told CNN. Scott County records show she and her husband owned a home in Davenport.

"Bobbie was the consummate trooper in her struggle with cancer; she was courageous and fearless in her battle and thoughtful for all the others in her life even as she fought through the pain," Battista's husband John Brimelow said in a statement on Tuesday. "My dear partner of 25 years of marriage has cut her earthly bonds and is now in peace."

During her 1981-2001 career with the cable news company, Battista anchored coverage of major events including the Challenger space shuttle explosion, the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and the Gulf War.

When she moved from CNN Headline News to CNN in 1988, she anchored shows that included "CNN NewsHour."

During Battista's early career, she worked as a local news anchor and producer for WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C. In 1981, she was the writer and assistant producer for the Peabody Award-winning documentary "Fed up with Fear."

Peter Tedeschi, a professional stage actor and journalist in New York, worked with Battista at CNN Headline News in Atlanta.

When he practiced writing news copy, Battista "very graciously on her own time" reviewed what he had written and similarly guided many other younger people.

"Bobbie really helped guide me in how to be a professional news writer," he said. "She was very insightful.

"She knew the news."

FILE - In this June 13, 2013, file photo, actor Robert Conrad poses for photographers during the closing ceremony of the 2013 Monte Carlo Television Festival, in Monaco. Conrad, the rugged, contentious actor who starred in the hugely popular 1960s television series "Hawaiian Eye" and "The Wild, Wild West," has died at age 84. A family spokesperson says the actor died Saturday morning, Feb. 8, 2020, in Malibu, Calif., from heart failure. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)

FILE - This June 25, 2015 file photo shows Neil Peart of the band Rush performing in concert during their R40 Live: 40th Anniversary Tour in Philadelphia. Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the band Rush, has died. His rep Elliot Mintz said in a statement Friday that he died at his home Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 67. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP, File)

Neil Peart, drummer for influential rockers Rush, dead at 67

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Neil Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the influential Canadian band Rush, has died. He was 67.

His representative, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement Friday that Peart died at his home Tuesday in Santa Monica, California. The band posted a message on Twitter also confirming the news.

"It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer," the band wrote. "Rest in peace brother."

Peart placed fourth on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, just behind Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham. Peart's jaw-dropping percussion skills, though, were matched by his wondrous skill with lyrics as Rush composed song after thought-provoking song that deftly explored the human condition or conjured up mysterious realms beyond the humdrum life of the band's heyday in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Peart was precise, deliberate and skilled behind his sprawling drum kit, but his innovative lyrics helped set Rush apart from other prog rock bands.

Rush was a power trio that rock had never quite seen before, with the searing guitar work of Alex Lifeson, the bass, keyboards and vocals of Geddy Lee and the fantastical drumming of Peart, who was no mere backing member of the rhythm section but rather an indispensable leg of the unusual tripod. The band still finds airplay today with anthems like "The Spirit of Radio" and "Tom Sawyer" — perhaps its best-known song — and "Subdivisions," with its searing assessment of early '80s life in cookie-cutter housing tracts: "Be cool or be cast out."

The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and honored for combining "the signature traits of progressive rock with a proto typical heavy-metal sound."

"We've always said it's not something that meant a lot to us, but we knew our fans cared so much to be validated like that — that their favorite band like their favorite sports team should be celebrated as champions," Peart told The Associated Press at the time. "We always knew that was the case and certainly to see it blossom after this is a testament to the truth of that."

Peart was born on Sept. 12, 1952 in Ontario. Music became an outlet for the self-described introvert who remained a quiet, under-the-radar star his entire career.

"I was very academic until I discovered drums," he explained in a 2017 interview with Classic Rock. "Then I was a monomaniac about drumming. I was physically awkward. My ankles were weak, so I couldn't play any sports. I couldn't skate and I couldn't play hockey, which in Canada is like football is in the U.K. And that makes you a pariah as a boy."

When Rush formed in 1968, its original lineup included Lifeson, bassist Jeff Jones and drummer John Rutsey. After a few weeks, Lee replaced Jones, and in 1974, Peart replaced Rutsey weeks before Rush's first U.S. tour. Rush's first album with Peart — by then the band's principal songwriter — was 1975's platinum-seller "Fly by Night." They released another album that same year, "Caress of Steel," which reached gold status.

In 1976 the band marked a major breakthrough with the album "2112," which sold three million units in the U.S. The first side of the album tells the tale of a dystopian world where creativity, individualism and music itself are outlawed — Peart was a reader of Ayn Rand — only to have things unravel when someone discovers an abandoned guitar. It was an extraordinary effort and fans responded in droves.

Lee described working with Peart's lyrics during a 2018 interview with The Guardian: "Being an interpreter for Neil has been a singular pleasure of mine and a really difficult job at the same time, because I'm not always on the same page as him. As we grew as a band, I became trusted by him to be his sounding board and his editor, and if I couldn't get into a thing, he would leave it alone. That's the beauty of a relationship that lasts."

Rush's most successful album was 1981's "Moving Pictures," which sold four million copies. The album featured "Tom Sawyer" and "YYZ" — a track that served as a showcase for Peart during live shows and secured Rush its first-ever Grammy nomination; the band would earn seven nominations over time. 1990's "Chronicles" was a double platinum success; 11 of the band's albums were certified platinum and 10 albums reached gold status.

Peart was also an author and published six books. At one point in the 1990s, he took jazz drumming instruction, explaining to Classic Rock: "After 40, 45 years of playing, I wanted to push myself and open up this whole new frontier. I've been able to do that as a lyricist and as a prose writer, and now as a drummer. You have to challenge your own limitations and your own expectations of yourself."

In 2015, Peart announced he was retiring from touring, saying he was struggling with ailments and concerned he would not be able to play in top form.

High-profile musicians were among the fans of Peart and Rush who paid tribute on social media.

"Today the world lost a true giant in the history of rock and roll. An inspiration to millions with an unmistakable sound who spawned generations of musicians (like myself) to pick up two sticks and chase a dream. A kind, thoughtful, brilliant man who ruled our radios and turntables not only with his drumming, but also his beautiful words," Dave Grohl, who inducted Rush into the Rock Hall, said in a statement Friday. "I still vividly remember my first listen of '2112' when I was young. It was the first time I really listened to a drummer. And since that day, music has never been the same. His power, precision, and composition was incomparable. He was called 'The Professor' for a reason: we all learned from him."

Jack Black tweeted, "The master will be missed — Neil Peart RIP #RushForever." Gene Simmons called Peart "a kind soul," while Chuck D of Public Enemy recalled being inducted into the Rock Hall on the same night as Rush, saying backstage he and Peart shared "a unique moment without much word. Rest in Beats my man."

Slash, Bryan Adams, Paul Stanley and Questlove of The Roots also paid tribute to Peart.

"Thank you for inspiring me and for all your help and advice along the way, especially in the early days when you took the time to talk to a young green Danish drummer about recording, gear and the possibilities that lay ahead," Metallica's Lars Ulrich wrote on Twitter. "Thank you for what you did for drummers all over the world with your passion, your approach, your principles and your unwavering commitment to the instrument! Rest In Peace."

Peart is survived by his wife, Carrie, and their daughter, Olivia Louise Peart.

Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones.

Agent says Monty Python star Terry Jones has died aged 77

LONDON — Terry Jones, a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe, has died. he was 77 and had been suffering from dementia.

Jones's agent says he died Tuesday evening. In a statement, his family said he died "after a long, extremely brave but always good humored battle with a rare form of dementia, FTD."

With Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam, Jones formed Monty Python's Flying Circus, whose anarchic humor helped revolutionize British comedy.

FILE - In this June 3, 2004 file photograph, author Mary Higgins Clark poses in her home in Saddle River, N.J. Clark, the tireless and long-reigning "Queen of Suspense" whose tales of women beating the odds made her one of the world's most popular writers, died Friday, Jan. 31, 2020, at age 92. Clark's publisher, Simon & Schuster, announced that Clark died in Naples, Fla, of natural causes. (AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

Author Mary Higgins Clark, 'Queen of Suspense,' dead at 92

NEW YORK — Mary Higgins Clark, the tireless and long-reigning "Queen of Suspense" whose tales of women beating the odds made her one of the world's most popular writers, died Friday at age 92.

Her publisher, Simon & Schuster, announced that she died of natural causes in Naples, Florida.

"Nobody ever bonded more completely with her readers than Mary did," her longtime editor Michael Korda said in statement. "She understood them as if they were members of her own family. She was always absolutely sure of what they wanted to read — and, perhaps more important, what they didn't want to read — and yet she managed to surprise them with every book."

Widowed in her late 30s with five children, she became a perennial bestseller over the second half of her life, writing or co-writing "A Stranger Is Watching," "Daddy's Little Girl" and more than 50 other favorites. Sales topped 100 million copies and honors came from all over, including a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from France or a Grand Master statuette back home from the Mystery Writers of America. Many of her books, like "A Stranger is Watching" and "Lucky Day," were adapted for movies and television. She also collaborated on several novels with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark.

Mary Higgins Clark specialized in women triumphing over danger, such as the besieged young prosecutor in "Just Take My Heart" or the mother of two and art gallery worker whose second husband is a madman in "A Cry in the Night." Clark's goal as an author was simple, if rarely easy: Keep the readers reading.

"You want to turn the page," she told The Associated Press in 2013. "There are wonderful sagas you can thoroughly enjoy a section and put it down. But if you're reading my book, I want you stuck with reading the next paragraph. The greatest compliment I can receive is, 'I read your darned book 'til 4 in the morning, and now I'm tired.' I say, 'Then you get your money's worth.'"

Her own life taught her lessons of resilience — strengthened by her Catholic faith — that she shared with her fictional heroines. She was born Mary Higgins in 1927 in New York City, the second of three children. She would later take the last name Clark after marriage. Her father ran a popular pub that did well enough for the family to afford a maid and for her mother to prepare meals for strangers in need. But business slowed during the Great Depression, and her father, forced to work ever longer hours as he laid off employees, died in his sleep in 1939. One of her brothers died of meningitis a few years later. Surviving family members took on odd jobs and had to rent out rooms in the house.

Clark had always loved to write. At age 6, she completed her first poem, which her mother proudly requested she recite in front of the family. A story she wrote in grade school impressed her teacher enough that Clark read it to the rest of the class. By high school, she was trying to sell stories to True Confessions magazine.

After working as a hotel switchboard operator — Tennessee Williams was among the guests she eavesdropped on — and a flight attendant for Pan American, she married Capital Airways regional manager Warren Clark in 1949. Throughout the 1950s and into the '60s, she raised their children, studied writing at New York University and began getting stories published.

Some stories drew upon her experiences at Pan American. Another story, which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, "Beauty Contest at Buckingham Palace," imagined a pageant featuring Queen Elizabeth II, Jackie Kennedy and Princess Grace of Monaco. But by the mid-60s, the magazine market for fiction was rapidly shrinking and her husband's health was failing; Warren Clark died of a heart attack in 1964.

Clark quickly found work as a script writer for "Portrait of a President," a radio series on American presidents. Her research inspired her first book, a historical novel about George and Martha Washington. She was so determined that she began getting up at 5 a.m., working until nearly 7 a.m. before feeding her children and leaving for work.

"Aspire to the Heavens" was published in 1969. It was "a triumph," she recalled in her memoir "Kitchen Privileges," but also a folly. The book's publisher was sold near the release date and it received little attention. She regretted the title and learned that some stores placed the book in religious sections. Her compensation was $1,500, minus commission. Decades later, the novel would be reissued, far more successfully, as "Mount Vernon: A Love Story."

For her next book, she wanted to make some money. Following a guideline she would often suggest to other writers, she looked at her bookshelves, which featured novels by Agatha Christie, Rex Stout and other mystery writers, and decided she should write the kind of book she liked to read. A recent tabloid trial about a young woman accused of murdering her children gave her an idea.

"It seemed inconceivable to most of us that any woman could do that to her children," Mary Clark wrote in her memoir. "And then I thought: Suppose an innocent young mother is convicted of the deliberate murder of her two children; suppose she gets out of prison on a technicality; and then suppose seven years to the day, on her 32nd birthday, the children of her second marriage disappear."

In September 1974, she sent her agent a manuscript for "Die a Little Death," acquired months later by Simon & Schuster for $3,000. Renamed "Where are the Children?" and released in 1975, it became her first bestseller and began her long, but not entirely surprising, run of success. She would allege that a psychic had told her she would become rich and famous.

Clark, who wrote well into her 90s, more than compensated for her early struggles. She acquired several homes and for a time owned part of the New Jersey Nets. She was among a circle of authors, including Lee Child and Nelson DeMille, who regularly met for dinner in Manhattan. She also had friends in Washington and was a White House guest during the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Barbara Bush became a close friend.

Married since 1996 to former Merrill Lynch Futures CEO John J. Conheeney, Clark remembered well the day she said goodbye to hard times. It was in April 1977, and her agent had told her that Simon & Schuster was offering $500,000 for the hardcover to her third novel, "A Stranger is Watching," and that the publisher Dell was paying $1 million for the paperback. She had been running her own script production company during the day and studying for a philosophy degree at Fordham University at night, returning home to New Jersey in an old car with more than 100,000 miles on it.

"As I drove onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, the tailpipe and muffler came loose and began dragging on the ground. For the next 21 miles, I kur-plunked, kur-plunked, all the way home," she wrote in her memoir. "People in other cars kept honking and beeping, obviously sure that I was either too stupid or too deaf to hear the racket.

"The next day I bought a Cadillac!"

FILE - This Nov. 16, 1982 file photo shows actor Kirk Douglas at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. Douglas died Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020 at age 103.

Kirk Douglas rose from poverty to become a king of Hollywood

NEW YORK (AP) — He was born Issur Danielovitch, a ragman's son. He died Kirk Douglas, a Hollywood king.

Douglas, the muscular, tempestuous actor with the dimpled chin, lived out an epic American story of reinvention and perseverance, from the riches he acquired and risked to the parts he took on and the boundaries he defied. Among the most popular, versatile and recognizable leading men of the 20th century, he could will himself into a role or a favorite cause as mightily as he willed himself out of poverty.

Douglas, who died Wednesday at 103, was a force for change and symbol of endurance. He is remembered now as a final link to a so-called "Golden Age," the father of Oscar winner Michael Douglas and a man nearly as old as the industry itself. But in his prime, he represented a new kind of performer, more independent and adventurous than Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and other greats of the studio era of the 1930s and 1940s, and more willing to speak his mind.

His career began at the peak of the studios’ power and ended in a more diverse, decentralized age that he helped bring about.

Reaching stardom after World War II, he was as likely to play cads (the movie producer in "Bad and the Beautiful," the journalist in "Ace in the Hole") as he was suited for the hero-slave in "Spartacus," as alert to the business as he was at home before the camera. He was producing his own films at a time most movie stars were content to act and was working with an enviable range of directors, from a young Stanley Kubrick to a middle-aged John Huston, from a genius of noir like Jacques Tourneur to such master satirists as Billy Wilder and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Acting served as escape and as confession. His favorite among dozens of films was the contemporary Western "Lonely are the Brave," which came out in 1962 and included a line of dialogue Douglas called the most personal he ever spoke: "I’m a loner clear down deep to my very guts."

He never won a competitive Oscar, but he received an honorary one, along with a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute, an honorary Golden Globe and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

His standing came in part from his role in the downfall of Hollywood's blacklist, which halted and ruined the careers of writers suspected of pro-Communist activity or sympathies.

By the end of the 1950s, the use of banned writers was widely known within the industry, but not to the general public. Douglas, who years earlier had reluctantly signed a loyalty oath to get the starring role in "Lust for Life," delivered a crucial blow when he openly credited the blacklisted Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo for script work on "Spartacus," the Roman epic about a slave rebellion that was released in 1960. (A few months before, Otto Preminger had announced Trumbo's name would appear on the credits for "Exodus," but "Spartacus" came out first.)

"Everybody advised me not to do it because you won't be able to work in this town again and all of that. But I was young enough to say to hell with it," Douglas, criticized at times for taking undue credit for bringing down the blacklist, said about "Spartacus" in a 2011 interview with The Associated Press. "I think if I was much older, I would have been too conservative: 'Why should I stick my neck out?’ "

The most famous words in a Douglas movie were said about him, not by him, in "Spartacus." Roman officials tell a gathering of slaves their lives will be spared if they identify their leader. As Douglas rises, a growing chorus of slaves jump up and shout, "I’m Spartacus!" Douglas stands silently, a tear rolling down his face.

Life was not a role to be underplayed. His outbursts frightened co-workers and family members alike. He was compulsive about preparing for movies and a supreme sufferer on camera, whether stabbed by scissors in Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" or crucified in "Spartacus."

Critic David Thomson dubbed Douglas "the manic-depressive among Hollywood stars, one minute bearing down on plot, dialogue and actresses with the gleeful appetite of a man just freed from Siberia, at other times writhing not just in agony but mutilation and a convincingly horrible death."

While filming "Lust for Life," he was so caught up in Vincent van Gogh he feared becoming suicidal himself.

Douglas recounted in his memoir that John Wayne yelled at him for playing "a part like that."

"We got to play strong, tough characters. Not those weak queers," Wayne said.

Responded Douglas: ''Hey, John, I'm an actor. I like to play interesting roles. It's all make-believe, John. It isn't real. You're not really John Wayne, you know.''

Issur Danielovitch was born in 1916 to an impoverished Jewish family in Amsterdam, New York. His name evolved over time. He called himself Isidore Demsky until he graduated from St. Lawrence University. He took the name Kirk Douglas as he worked his way through the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, choosing "Douglas" because he wanted his last name still to begin with "D" and "Kirk" because he liked the hard, jagged sound of the "K."

Douglas was a performer as early as kindergarten, when he recited a poem about the red robin of spring. He was a star in high school, and in college he wrestled and built the physique that was showcased in many of his movies. He was determined, hitchhiking to St. Lawrence and convincing the dean to approve a student loan. And he was tough. One of his strongest childhood memories was of flinging a spoonful of hot tea into the face of his intimidating father.

"I have never done anything as brave in any movie," he later wrote.

Beginning in 1941, Douglas won a series of small roles on Broadway, served briefly in the Navy and received a key Hollywood break when an old friend from New York, Lauren Bacall, recommended he play opposite Barbara Stanwyck in "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers."

He gained further attention as a tough guy in the classic 1947 film noir "Out of the Past," although a more typical role was as a school teacher in Mankiewicz's Oscar-winning "A Letter to Three Wives." His real breakthrough came as an unscrupulous boxer in 1949's "Champion," a low-budget film produced by a then-little known Stanley Kramer that his agents disparaged.

"With dire warnings about my career and my future, they gave up on me, writing me off as just another crazy New York actor who didn't know what he was doing," Douglas recalled in his memoir "The Ragman's Son," published in 1988.

He had long desired creative control and "Champion" was followed by a run of successes that gave him the clout to form Bryna Productions (named after his mother) in 1955, and a second company later. Many of his movies, such as Kubrick's "Paths of Glory," "The Vikings," "Spartacus" and "Seven Days in May," were produced by his companies. Other highlights included the acclaimed crime drama "Detective Story" and the Oscar-winning adaptation of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

Douglas very much lived like a movie star, or even a king, in the pre-#MeToo era. Marriage and other commitments didn't keep him from being romantically linked with many of his female co-stars, among them Gene Tierney, Patricia Neal and Marlene Dietrich. He would recall playing Ann Sothern's husband in "A Letter to Three Wives" and how he and the actress "rehearsed the relationship offstage."

Speaking to The Associated Press about Douglas in December 2016, less than a year before the #MeToo movement caught on, the actress and dancer Neile Adams lightheartedly said of her friend, "You could not sit beside him without his hand crawling up your leg."

His first marriage, to Diana Dill, ended in 1951. Three years later, he married Anne Buydens, whom he met in Paris while he was filming "Act of Love" (and eagerly pursuing a young Italian actress) and she was a publicist.

He would later owe his very life to Anne, to whom he was married more than 60 years despite acknowledged tension over his infidelities.

In 1958, the film producer Michael Todd, then the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, offered the actor a ride on his private jet. Douglas’ wife insisted that he not go, worrying about a private plane, and he eventually gave in. The plane crashed, killing all on board.

Douglas had two children with each of his wives and all went into show business, against their father's advice. Besides Michael, they are Joel and Peter, both producers, and Eric, an actor with several film credits who died of a drug overdose in 2004.

Later generations came to know Michael well. Michael Douglas not only thrived in Hollywood, but beat his dad to the Oscars with a project his father had first desired. Kirk Douglas tried for years to make a film out of Ken Kesey's cult novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." In the 1970s, he gave up and let Michael have a try.

The younger Douglas produced a classic that starred Jack Nicholson as rebel Randle Patrick McMurphy (the role Kirk Douglas wanted to play) and dominated the Oscars, winning for best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay.

"My father has played up his disappointment with that pretty good," Michael Douglas later told Vanity Fair. "I have to remind him, I shared part of my producing back-end (credit) with him, so he ended up making more money off that movie than he had in any other picture."

"And I would gladly give back every cent, if I could have played that role," the elder Douglas replied.

When his movie career faded, Douglas turned to other media. In the 1970s and 1980s, he did several notable television films, including "Victory at Entebbe" and "Amos." His film credits in the '70s and '80s included De Palma's "The Fury" and a comedy, "Tough Guys," that co-starred Burt Lancaster, his longtime friend who previously appeared with Douglas in "Seven Days in May," "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" and other movies.

A stroke in 1996 seemed to end his film career, but Douglas returned three years later with "Diamonds," which he made after struggling to overcome speech problems.

"I thought I would never make another movie unless silent movies came back," he joked.

He would say he became more reflective in his 70s, especially after a 1991 helicopter crash that killed two other passengers, and began a prolific writing career. His books included "The Ragman's Son," the novels "Dance With the Devil" and "The Gift" and a short work on the making of "Spartacus."

Douglas also was one of Hollywood's leading philanthropists. The Douglas Foundation, which he and Anne Douglas co-founded, has donated millions to a wide range of institutions, from the Children's Hospital Los Angeles to the Motion Picture & Television Fund. In 2015, the foundation endowed the Kirk Douglas Fellowship — a full-tuition, 2-year scholarship — at the American Film Institute.

In 2003, Douglas teamed with son Michael; Cameron Douglas, Michael's 24-year-old son; and ex-wife Diana Douglas, Michael's mother, for "It Runs in the Family," a comic drama with a few digs worked in about the elder Douglas’ parenting.

In March 2009, he appeared in a one-man show, "Before I Forget," recounting his life and famous friends. The four-night show in the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City was sold out.

"You know, I never wanted to be a movie actor," Douglas told the AP in 2009. "My goal in life was to be a star on the stage. Now I know how to do it. Build your own theater."

FILE - This Sept. 21, 1986 file photo shows actor John Karlen, center, who portrays the husband of detective Mary Beth Lacey on the TV show "Cagney & Lacey, " posing with presenters Stacy Keach, left, and Angie Dickinson after Karlen won an Emmy for best supporting actor at the Emmy Awards in Pasadena, Calif. Karlen, known for his roles on the television series "Dark Shadows" and "Cagney & Lacey," died Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, of congestive heart failure in Burbank, Calif. He was 86. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

'Dark Shadows,' 'Cagney & Lacey' actor John Karlen dies

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Emmy-winning character actor John Karlen, known for his roles on the television series "Dark Shadows" and "Cagney & Lacey," has died.

Karlen died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at a hospice in Burbank, friend and family spokesman Jim Pierson said. He was 86.

Karlen played conman and scoundrel Willie Loomis, and later several other roles, on "Dark Shadows," the cult favorite horror soap that aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971.

He played Harvey Lacey, husband to Tyne Daly's Mary Beth Lacey, on the acclaimed CBS police drama "Cagney & Lacey" from 1982 to 1988.

Karlen won an Emmy as best supporting actor in a drama for the role in 1986.

Born John Adam Karlewicz in Brooklyn, New York, Karlen studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began his career on stage, appearing in the 1959 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth."

From the late 1950s until the mid-1990s, Karlen would work almost constantly in television, amassing well over 100 acting credits. In addition to his two long-running parts, he had guest stints or recurring roles on shows including "The Streets of San Francisco," "Charlie's Angels," "Quincy, M.E.," "Hill Street Blues" and "Murder, She Wrote."

He also had a handful of appearances in film, including 1970's "House of Dark Shadows," a cinematic spin-off of the TV series.

His final major role was a reprise of his Harvey Lacey character for the 1996 television movie, "Cagney & Lacey: True Convictions."

Karlen's survivors include his son, Adam.

FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2008 file photo, veteran PBS anchor and debate moderator Jim Lehrer asks a question during the first U.S. Presidential Debate between presidential nominees Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. PBS announced that PBS NewsHour's Jim Lehrer died Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020, at home. He was 85. (AP Photo/Chip Somodevilla, Pool)

'NewsHour' host and debate moderator Jim Lehrer dies at 85

By MARK KENNEDY and DAVID BAUDER Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Jim Lehrer, longtime host of the nightly PBS "NewsHour" whose serious, sober demeanor made him the choice to moderate 11 presidential debates between 1988 and 2012, has died, PBS said Thursday. He was 85.

Lehrer died "peacefully in his sleep," according to PBS. He had suffered a heart attack in 1983 and more recently, had undergone heart valve surgery in April 2008.

For Lehrer, and for his friend and longtime partner Robert MacNeil, broadcast journalism was a service, with public understanding of events and issues its primary goal.

"We both believed the American people were not as stupid as some of the folks publishing and programming for them believed," Lehrer wrote in his 1992 memoir, "A Bus of My Own."

"We were convinced they cared about the significant matters of human events. ... And we were certain they could and would hang in there more than 35 seconds for information about those subjects if given a chance."

Tributes poured in from colleagues and watchers alike, including from Fox News' Bret Baier, who called Lehrer "an inspiration to a whole generation of political journalists— including this one." Dan Rather said "few approached their work with more equanimity and integrity than Jim Lehrer." And Jake Tapper of CNN called Lehrer "a wonderful man and a superb journalist." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called him a "champion for truth and transparency."

Many Americans knew him best for his role as debate moderator. For seven straight presidential elections, he was the sole journalist sitting across from the candidates for the first debate of the general election campaign. In 1996 and 2000, he moderated all of the debates — five of them — and a vice presidential contest to boot.

He told The Associated Press in 2011 that his goal was to probe the candidates' thinking and avoid "gotcha" questions. He felt his best debate performance was in 2004, with George W. Bush and John Kerry, not because of anything he did, but because the candidates were able to state their positions clearly.

"I didn't get in the way," said Lehrer, whose book "Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates" told stories of his experiences. "Nobody was talking about what I did as a moderator. I didn't become part of the story."

He was lured out of retirement for his last debate in 2012 and it may have been a mistake; he received criticism that year for having too light a touch on the proceedings.

The half-hour "Robert MacNeil Report" began on PBS in 1975 with Lehrer as Washington correspondent. The two had already made names for themselves at the then-fledgling network through their work with the National Public Affairs Center for Television and its coverage of the Watergate hearings in 1973.

The nightly news broadcast, later retitled the "MacNeil-Lehrer Report," became the nation's first one-hour TV news broadcast in 1983 and was then known as the "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour." After MacNeil bowed out in 1995, it became "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

"I'm heartbroken at the loss of someone who was central to my professional life, a mentor to me and someone whose friendship I've cherished for decades," said Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour, in a statement.

Politics, international relations, economics, science, even developments in the arts were all given lengthy, detailed coverage in their show.

"When we expanded to the hour, it changed from being a supplement to an alternative," Lehrer said in 1990. "Now we take the position that if you're looking for a place to go every 24 hours and find out what's happened and get some in-depth treatment, we're the place."

Lehrer moderated his first presidential debate in 1988 and was a frequent consensus choice for the task in subsequent presidential contests. He likened the job to "walking down the blade of a knife."

"Anybody who would say it's just another TV show is a liar or a fool," he once said. "I know how important it is, but it's not about me. It's what the candidates say that matters."

He also anchored PBS coverage of inaugurations and conventions, dismissing criticism from other TV news organizations that the latter had become too scripted to yield much in the way of real news.

"I think when the major political parties of this country gather together their people and resources in one place to nominate their candidates, that's important," he told The Associated Press in 2000. "To me, it's a non-argument. I don't see why someone would argue that it wasn't important."

Naturally, Lehrer came in for some knocks for being so low-key in the big televised events. After a matchup between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, David Letterman cracked, "Last night was probably the first and only that time Jim Lehrer (was) the most exciting person in the room."

But the real-life Lehrer — who had a tradition of buying a new tie for good luck before each debate — was more colorful than he might have seemed on PBS.

On the side, he was also a novelist and sometime playwright. His debut novel "Viva Max!" was made into a movie starring Peter Ustinov. He did a whole series of novels about the adventures of an Oklahoma politician known as The One-Eyed Mack.

"Hemingway said this, too: If you paid attention as a reporter, then when the time came to write fiction you'd have something to write about," Lehrer told The Associated Press in 1991.

"And it turned out I did. And I've got all these stories stored up after 30 years in the news business. And they're just flowing out of me."

As Lehrer turned 75 in spring 2009, PBS announced that the show would be retitled as "PBS NewsHour" later in the year, with Lehrer pairing up on anchor duties with other show regulars.

He said he approved of the changes, telling The New York Times that having a pair of anchors would "shake things up a bit," even as all sectors of the news business struggled to meet changing reader and viewer demands.

Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1934, the son of parents who ran a bus line. In addition to titling his memoir "A Bus of My Own," he collected bus memorabilia — from station signs to a real 1946 Flxible Clipper bus.

After graduation from college in 1956, he served three years in the Marines, later calling the experience so valuable that he thought all young people should take part in national service.

"I had no close calls, no rendezvous with danger, no skirted destinies with death," he wrote. "What I had was a chance to discover and test myself, physically and emotionally and spiritually, in important, lasting ways."

He went to work from 1959 to 1970 at The Dallas Morning News and the now-defunct Dallas Times-Herald. Lehrer jumped to television for a Dallas nightly newscast.

Lehrer wrote that it was ironic that the Watergate hearings helped establish the importance of public TV, since President Richard Nixon hated public broadcasting. He also recalled that the lengthy hearings gave him the chance to practice his new craft, and MacNeil, already a veteran, gave him valuable pointers on how to speak on camera clearly and conversationally.

He is survived by his wife, Kate; three daughters: Jamie, Lucy, and Amanda; and six grandchildren.

___

This Sept. 9, 2017 file photo shows James Lipton at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Lipton died Monday, March 2, 2020, of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter. He was 93. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

'Inside the Actors Studio' host James Lipton dies at 93

LOS ANGELES — James Lipton, an actor-turned-drama-school-dean who got hundreds of Hollywood luminaries to open up about their life and art and became an unlikely celebrity himself as the longtime host of "Inside the Actors Studio," died Monday.

Lipton died of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told The Associated Press. He was 93.

The Detroit-born Lipton began the Bravo show in 1994 that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio Drama School, where he was then dean.

He often said his only requirement for a guest was whether they had something to teach his students. His first guest, Paul Newman, set a standard of stardom for those that would follow, including Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.

"Rest in peace, James Lipton. He was interested in the actor's process, which was so refreshing," Streisand said in a Twitter post.

Lipton was known, and often parodied, for his highbrow and sometimes worshipful tone with his subjects, and for his intensive preparation, represented by a stack of blue note cards that held his meticulously researched questions. When Will Ferrell played Lipton on "Saturday Night Live," the stack of cards was nearly a foot thick.

Many otherwise media-shy actors were willing to appear on "Inside the Actors Studio" because Lipton focused on their craft and not the usual celebrity chatter or project promotion.

"People do not come on to sell a movie and you never hear the words, 'I'm opening in Vegas in two weeks,' " Lipton told the AP in a 1996 interview. "That's what most talk shows depend upon, and that's fine, but with us we're getting together to dig as deep as we can."

He was not afraid to get personal, however, and his stunned interviewees often asked "How did you know that?" when he asked about something from their childhood or private life.

Julia Roberts asked Lipton if he had talked to her mother after one set of questions, and Sally Field in her first-season appearance asked, "Have you been reading my diary? Talking to my shrink?''

"Obviously we deal in lots of anecdotes, and even some gossip and secrets," Lipton told the AP, "but they're tied together by a concern for and devotion to craft."

He ended every interview with a set of soul-searching questions he derived from French television host Bernard Pivot, including, "What is your favorite curse word?" and "If God exists, what would you like to hear him say after your death?"

Lipton's own childhood was made financially perilous by the divorce of his parents, poet and journalist Lawrence Lipton and teacher Betty Weinberg.

"I always had to work, from the age of 13. When my father left, we had nothing," he told Parade magazine in 2013. While he dabbled in acting as a youngster, he intended to pursue law to avoid the instability he'd experienced as a youngster.

He ultimately turned back to his original passion, the arts, but with an unusual detour. He worked as a pimp for a year in Paris after World War II, Lipton told Parade. He was broke and planning to leave the city when a prostitute he knew suggested he represent her and others.

"It was only a few years after the war. Paris was different then, still poor. Men couldn't get jobs and, in the male chauvinist Paris of that time, the women couldn't get work at all. It was perfectly respectable for them" to work at one of city's bordellos, Lipton said.

Back home in the U.S., he studied acting with famed teacher Stella Adler as well as production and directing at New York University and the New School. His 1950s stage and screen credits included "The Autumn Garden" on Broadway and a stint as actor and then writer on the TV soap opera "The Guiding Light." Lipton wrote the book and the lyrics for two Broadway musicals, "Nowhere to Go but Up" (1962) and "Sherry!" (1967).

In the 1990s, as a vice president of the Actors Studio, Lipton helped create the Actors Studio Drama School that brought together the resources of the studio and the New School. He was the founding dean of the graduate-level school, which in 2005 relocated to Pace University, where Lipton remained its dean emeritus.

Despite his TV show's guest list of nearly every A-list actor of recent decades, Lipton never got the guest he wanted most, Marlon Brando.

"He was reclusive in the last years of his life," Lipton told Parade . "He said, 'I'm never going to do your show. The studio's always taking credit for me. I was trained by Stella Adler.' I said, 'So was I. Come on. We'll talk about Stella.' I've had a pretty good roster of guests without Marlon."

Lipton said his favorite guest on the show was Bradley Cooper, because he was a former student.

"The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing," Lipton told Larry King in 2016. "It turned out to be Bradley Cooper."

Lipton and Cooper, who can be seen asking Sean Penn a question in a 1999 episode of the show, both teared up when he returned as a guest in 2011. Lipton retired as host in 2018.

Other than Brando and Jack Nicholson, another favorite of his who he never had as a guest, Lipton spent little time trying to land big names, who often came to him as appearing on the show became a sought-after sign of career achievement for actors.

Lipton told the AP that that response from actors made him think that "maybe, just maybe, we were creating an archive that would be more valuable 100 years from now.''

In this Feb. 17, 2013, photo, Ja'Net DuBois attends Los Angeles Premiere of "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners" at Pan African Film Festival at Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles, California. DuBois, who played the vivacious neighbor Willona Woods on "Good Times" and composed and sang the theme song for "The Jeffersons," has died. Police in Glendale, Calif., said they received a report about DuBois' death late Monday, Feb. 17, 2020. She appeared to have died of natural causes and no investigation is ongoing, police Sgt. Dan Stubbs said. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Invision/AP)

'Good Times' Ja'Net DuBois dies; co-wrote 'Jeffersons' theme

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ja'Net DuBois, who played the vivacious neighbor Willona Woods on "Good Times" and composed and sang the theme song for "The Jeffersons," has died.

DuBois' song "Movin' on Up" provided a joyous intro to "The Jeffersons" during the show's 10-season run.

BernNadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans Anderson on "Good Times" and remained close to DuBois, said she learned of her death Tuesday from the actress' daughter.

"She used to keep us laughing all the time," Stanis said, warmly recalling her friend. "She was very, very talented. If she wasn't singing ... she was creating a character to make us laugh."

Police in Glendale, California, said they received a report about DuBois' death late Monday. She appeared to have died of natural causes and no investigation is ongoing, police Sgt. Dan Stubbs said. No additional details, including her age, were immediately available.

Stanis said DuBois appeared to be in good health when they appeared two weeks ago at a signing event. Her birth date was something she kept to herself, Stanis said.

"Nobody really knows," said Stanis, who recalled telling DuBois, "'Oh, you're so lucky. Nobody knows your age, girl!'"

DuBois had a prolific career beyond the 1970s hit "Good Times," winning two Emmy Awards for her voice work on the WB series "The PJs."

DuBois' Willona was the single, sexy neighbor and best friend to star Esther Rolle's Florida Evans. Though the comedy had plenty of one-liners, DuBois' appearances gave an extra dose of comedic relief. DuBois showed off more of her dramatic skills when a young Janet Jackson joined the show as the abused child Penny; DuBois' character would go on to adopt Penny, and the story line also forged a long, close relationship between DuBois and Jackson, who would go on to become a multiplatinum superstar; she cast DuBois as her mother in her 1986 "Control" video.

Jackson paid tribute to DuBois in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

"I am so very saddened to hear my longtime friend Ja'Net DuBois has passed away. I saw first hand how she broke stereotypes and changed the landscape for Black women in entertainment," she wrote. "I'm grateful in recent years I had a chance to see her and create more lasting memories. I pray for comfort for all her family and friends."

Oscar-winner Viola Davis, who played the role of Florida in the live version of "Good Times" that aired on ABC in December, posted a picture of herself, DuBois, Stanis, Tiffany Haddish (who played Willona) and Corinne Foxx on the set of the broadcast.

"Oh man!!! Just saw you! What a pleasure it was to meet you," she wrote. "You shaped so much of the best memories of my childhood! God bless you, Ja'net DuBois!"

DuBois' career started in theater, where she appeared in Broadway productions of "Golden Boy" and "A Raisin in the Sun," according to a biography on her website. A performance in "The Hot l Baltimore" in Los Angeles caught the eye of Norman Lear, who developed "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons."

DuBois' Willona was a "true diva back then, fancy dressing, the wigs, doing the thing. ... the real woman woman," said Stanis. "She brought it, didn't she?"

Her film credits included 1970's "Diary of a Mad Housewife," "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."

She was credited in numerous other films as varied as "Basic Instinct," "Next Friday" and "Tropic Thunder," which included "Movin' on Up."

DuBois was a co-founder of the Pan African Film Festival, which since 1992 has showcased films meant to promote a greater cultural understanding of people of African descent.

The festival, which is being held in Los Angeles and runs through Sunday, on Tuesday released an image mourning DuBois, calling her "Our Founder, Now Our Angel."

FILE - In this June 7, 2009, file photo, NBA Commissioner David Stern announces Los Angeles will be the site of the 2011 NBA All-Star basketball game, at a news conference, in Los Angeles. David Stern, who spent 30 years as the NBA's longest-serving commissioner and oversaw its growth into a global power, has died on New Year's Day, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. He was 77. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)

Former NBA Commissioner David Stern dies at 77

NEW YORK (AP) — David Stern had basketball as a passion and law as a profession, one he figured he could return to if a job at the NBA didn't work out.

He never did.

Instead he went to Europe, Asia and plenty of other places around the world, bringing with him a league that was previously an afterthought in the U.S. and turning it into a global powerhouse.

Stern, who spent 30 years as the NBA's longest-serving commissioner and one of the best in sports history, died Wednesday. He was 77.

"Without David Stern, the NBA would not be what it is today," Hall of Famer Michael Jordan said. "He guided the league through turbulent times and grew the league into an international phenomenon, creating opportunities that few could have imagined before."

Stern suffered a brain hemorrhage on Dec. 12 and underwent emergency surgery. The league said he died with his wife, Dianne, and their family at his bedside.

"The entire basketball community is heartbroken," the National Basketball Players Association said. "David Stern earned and deserved inclusion in our land of giants."

Stern had been involved with the NBA for nearly two decades before he became its fourth commissioner on Feb. 1, 1984. By the time he left his position in 2014 — he wouldn't say or let league staffers say "retire," because he never stopped working — a league that fought for a foothold before him had grown to a more than $5 billion a year industry and made NBA basketball perhaps the world's most popular sport after soccer.

"Because of David, the NBA is a truly global brand — making him not only one of the greatest sports commissioners of all time, but also one of the most influential business leaders of his generation," said Adam Silver, who followed Stern as commissioner. "Every member of the NBA family is the beneficiary of David's vision, generosity and inspiration."

Lakers forward LeBron James echoed Silver.

"We lost a great visionary," James said. "Him and Dr. James Naismith are the two most important people for the game of basketball. Dr. Naismith because he invented the game and David for his vision, his vision to make this game global."

Thriving on good debate in the boardroom and good games in the arena, Stern would say one of his greatest achievements was guiding a league of mostly black players that was plagued by drug problems in the 1970s to popularity with mainstream America.

He had a hand in nearly every initiative to do that, from the drug testing program, to the implementation of the salary cap, to the creation of a dress code.

But for Stern, it was always about "the game," and his morning often included reading about the previous night's results in the newspaper — even after technological advances he embraced made reading NBA.com easier than ever.

"The game is what brought us here. It's always about the game and everything else we do is about making the stage or the presentation of the game even stronger, and the game itself is in the best shape that it's ever been in," he said on the eve of the 2009-10 season, calling it "a new golden age for the NBA."

One that was largely created by Stern during a three-decade run that turned countless ballplayers into celebrities who were known around the globe by one name: Magic, Michael, Kobe, LeBron, just to name a few.

Stern oversaw the birth of seven new franchises and the creation of the WNBA and NBA Development League, now the G League, providing countless opportunities to pursue careers playing basketball in the United States that previously weren't available.

Not bad for a guy who once thought his job might be a temporary one.

Stern had been the league's outside counsel from 1966 to '78 and spent two years as the NBA's general counsel, figuring he could always go back to his legal career if he found things weren't working out after a couple of years.

Instead, after serving as the NBA's executive vice president of business and legal affairs from 1980-84, he replaced Larry O'Brien as commissioner.

Overlooked and ignored only a few years earlier, when it couldn't even get its championship round on live network TV, the NBA saw its popularity quickly surge thanks to the rebirth of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry behind Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, followed by the entrance of Jordan just a few months after Stern became commissioner.

"There are no words that can really describe the far-reaching impact of Commissioner Stern's brilliance, vision, fairness and hard work over so many years," Bird said. "When you think of all that he accomplished worldwide on behalf of thousands of players, so many fans, all of the jobs he created for team and arena employees and all of the people that benefitted from the many layers of growth in the sport and industry that David spearheaded and then passed on to others, there is no doubt Commissioner Stern lifted the NBA to new heights and he will be greatly missed by all of us."

Under Stern, the NBA would play nearly 150 international games and be televised in more than 200 countries and territories, and in more than 40 languages, and the NBA Finals and All-Star weekend would grow into international spectacles. The 2010 All-Star game drew more than 108,000 fans to Dallas Cowboys Stadium, a record to watch a basketball game.

"It was David Stern being a marketing genius who turned the league around. That's why our brand is so strong," said Johnson, who announced he was retiring because of HIV in 1991 but returned the following year at the All-Star Game with Stern's backing.

"It was David Stern who took this league worldwide."

He was fiercely protective of his players and referees when he felt they were unfairly criticized, such as when members of the Indiana Pacers brawled with Detroit fans in 2004, or when an FBI investigation in 2007 found that Tim Donaghy had bet on games he officiated, throwing the entire referee operations department into turmoil. With his voice rising and spit flying, Stern would publicly rebuke media outlets, even individual writers, if he felt they had taken cheap shots.

But he was also a relentless negotiator against those same employees in collective bargaining, and his loyalty to his owners and commitment to getting them favorable deals led to his greatest failures, lockouts in 1998 and 2011 that were the only times the NBA lost games to work stoppages. Though he had already passed off the heavy lifting to Silver by the latter one, it was Stern who faced the greatest criticism, as well as the damage to a legacy that had otherwise rarely been tarnished.

"As tough an adversary as he was across the table, he never failed to recognize the value of our players, and had the vision and courage to make them the focus of our league's marketing efforts — building the NBA into the empire it is today," the NBPA said.

David Joel Stern was born Sept. 22, 1942, in New York, where he grew up a Knicks fan and worked in his fathers' deli. A graduate of Rutgers University and Columbia Law School, he was dedicated to public service, launching the NBA Cares program in 2005 that donated more than $100 million to charity in five years.

He would begin looking internationally soon after becoming commissioner and the globalization of the game got an enormous boost in 1992, when Jordan, Johnson and Bird played on the U.S. Olympic Dream Team that would bring the sport a new burst of popularity while storming to the gold medal in Barcelona.

Stern capitalized on that by sending NBA teams to play preseason games against other NBA or international clubs, and opened offices in other countries. The league staged regular-season games in Japan in 1991 and devoted significant resources to China, and Stern's work there would pay off in 2008 when basketball was perhaps the most popular sport in the Beijing Olympics.

Growth slowed near the end of his tenure. The worldwide economic downturn in the late 2000s all but wrecked his longtime hopes of expanding overseas and led to the second lockout, with owners wanting massive changes to the salary structure after losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on their basketball teams, on top of losses in their personal businesses.

He helped get them, and the league was thriving again by the time he left office. Stern said he felt the time was right, confident that he had groomed a worthy successor in Silver.

Silver, who worked for Stern for 22 years, is praised for his achievements since becoming commissioner. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also worked under Stern at the NBA, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue called him a great friend and ally on important issues, and many other executives in and out of sports have said they learned from the way Stern did business.

"Best leader in sports history," Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis said.

Stern stayed busy after leaving the league office, taking trips overseas on the NBA's behalf, doing public speaking and consulting various companies. He was inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Stern and his wife had two sons, Andrew and Eric.

Thomas Railsback

Ex-U.S. Rep. Tom Railsback — who crossed party lines on Nixon impeachment — dies at 87

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Railsback died Monday morning, two days shy of his 88th birthday.

The eight-term lawmaker from Moline is remembered nationally as one of a handful of Republican moderates who in 1974 worked to craft potential articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.

He also hired a young official from the Quad-Cities' former Bi-State Metropolitan Planning Commission named Ray LaHood in 1977, giving him his start in a political career that would include service in Congress and the presidential Cabinet.

"He was a great mentor to me and really taught me the importance of constituent service and taking care of people and solving their problems and issues — whether it's immigration or a Social Security problem or whatever," LaHood said Tuesday morning. "I admired him very much."

The two remained close over the years. LaHood bought Railsback's apartment when the latter left Washington, D.C., and still has it today. They talked regularly on the phone and golfed until Railsback had to give up the sport as his health declined.

Railsback had been living in a nursing home in Mesa, Ariz., for the last several years, LaHood said, after moving there from his Idaho home.

Railsback served in Congress from 1967 until 1983, most of that time representing territory in the western part of the state from Carroll County south to Adams County, including the Quad-Cities. After being redistricted into more conservative territory, he lost a primary election. Railsback's opponent was defeated in the general election by Lane Evans.

LaHood went to work for Peoria's U.S. Rep. Bob Michel, who was likely Railsback's "best friend in Congress," LaHood said.

"They were fundamentally decent people from the Midwest who had very good values for public service, good values for serving people and just doing the hard work that it takes for being a good congressman," LaHood said.

"They were good mentors for teaching me ... how to represent the people, how to take care of the people," he added. "Tom started me on that road, and I finished up with Bob Michel."

Michel and Railsback shared unique perches during the Watergate scandal — Railsback on the House Judiciary Committee and Michel as the head of the House Republican campaign arm. Both labeled it their toughest time in Congress.

"The whole thing was the most difficult legislative experience by far of my life," Railsback recalled in a 2014 interview with the (Peoria) Journal Star ahead of the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation.

As the Watergate scandal heated up, and as Judiciary Committee members began their work in late 1973, Railsback was tailed home for the Christmas recess by Sam Donaldson of ABC News. The other major networks soon followed.

He didn't quite know what to make of the attention.

"Everywhere I went, everybody I spoke to ... when I spoke to my daughter's grade school class, they filmed my life," he said.

His decision to support one of the articles of impeachment won him enmity from some, but he maintained that hearing the Watergate tapes was "really very key" to the investigation.

The challenge, in part, LaHood said, was that Nixon had campaigned for Railsback.

"I think Tom felt it was a tough vote, but it was the right vote. It really launched him into a position of being someone who was well-respected," he said.

And that tough call earned him a standing ovation — led by the head of Deere & Co. — when he returned to the Quad-Cities.

"I think people appreciated the fact that even though he was a Republican (and the president was a Republican), he wanted to do the right thing by the Constitution and for the people," LaHood said.

FILE - In this file photo dated Sunday Aug. 30, 2009, actor and comedian Orson Bean arrives at the Daytime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, USA. According to a statement from the Police in Los Angeles Saturday Feb. 8, 2020, Orson Bean was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles. Bean was 91. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, FILE)

Actor-comedian Orson Bean, 91, hit and killed by car in LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Orson Bean, the witty actor and comedian who enlivened the game show "To Tell the Truth" and played a crotchety merchant on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles, authorities said. He was 91.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office confirmed Bean's Friday night death, saying it was being investigated as a "traffic-related" fatality. The coroner's office provided the location where Bean was found, which matched reports from police.

A man was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk in the Venice neighborhood when he was clipped by a vehicle and fell, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison said. A second driver then struck him in what police say was the fatal collision. Both drivers remained on the scene, neither was impaired and Bean's death was being treated as an accident, Madison said.

Bean appeared in a number of films — notably, "Anatomy of a Murder" and "Being John Malkovich" — and starred in several top Broadway productions, receiving a Tony nod for the 1962 Comden-Green musical "Subways Are for Sleeping." But fans remembered him most for his many TV appearances from the 1950s onward.

"Mr. Bean's face comes wrapped with a sly grin, somewhat like the expression of a child when sneaking his hand into the cookie jar," The New York Times noted in a review of his 1954 variety show, "The Blue Angel." It said he showed "a quality of being likable even when his jokes fall flat."

Born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1928 as Dallas Frederick Burrows, he never lost the Yankee accent that proved a perfect complement to the dry, laconic storytelling that established him as popular humorist. He had picked the stage name Orson Bean "because it sounded funny."

His father, George, was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Bean recalled later that his "house was filled with causes." But he left home at 16 after his mother died by suicide.

In a 1983 New York Times interview, he recalled his early career in small clubs where the show consisted of "me — master of ceremonies, comedian and magician — maybe a dog act, and a stripper." It was a piano player in one such club, he said, who suggested replacing Dallas Burrows with some funny name like "Roger Duck" — or Orson Bean.

Bean's quick wit and warm personality made him a favorite panelist for six years on "To Tell the Truth." The game required the panelists to quiz three contestants to figure out which one was a real notable and which two were impostors. The dramatic outcome inspired a national catchphrase as the host turned to the three and said: "Will the real (notable's name) please stand up?"

Bean's style appealed to both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, and he appeared on "The Tonight Show" more than 200 times.

But his early career was hobbled for a time when he found himself on the Hollywood blacklist in the early years of the Cold War.

"Basically I was blacklisted because I had a cute communist girlfriend," he explained in a 2001 interview. "I stopped working on TV for a year."

The blacklist didn't stop him in the theater. Bean starred on Broadway as a timid fan magazine writer in George Axelrod's 1955 Hollywood spoof "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" alongside Jayne Mansfield and Walter Matthau. He also starred on Broadway with Maureen O'Sullivan in "Never Too Late" and with Melina Mercouri in "Illya Darling," based on her hit film "Never on Sunday."

Bean took a break from his career for a time in the 1970s when he dropped out and moved to Australia, where he lived a hippie lifestyle. But he returned to the U.S. and — after a period as a self-described "house-husband" — resumed his career.

"I got sick of contemplating my navel and staring up at the sky and telling myself how wonderful it was not to be doing anything," he explained in a 1983 interview with The New York Times.

In the 1990s, he played the shopkeeper Loren Bray on the long-running drama "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." He remained active on the screen in recent years with guest shots in such shows as "Desperate Housewives," "How I Met Your Mother" and "Modern Family."

Meanwhile, his politics turned more conservative. His daughter married leading right-wing commentator, Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart died in 2012 and Steve Bannon, later a top adviser to Donald Trump, took over Breitbart's eponymous website, for which Bean had penned occasional columns.

Bean wrote a memoir called "Too Much Is Not Enough" and a book about a non-traditional therapy called "Me and the Orgone."

He had already shown his interest in non-traditional thinking in 1964 when he bought a building in Manhattan and opened up a school based on the philosophy of Summerhill, the progressive British school founded by A.S. Neill.

"I said to myself, we have to start with the children. Why not start a school?" he told The New York Times.

That same year, he co-founded the Sons of the Desert, an organization dedicated to comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, with chapters around the world.

More recently, income from "Dr. Quinn" and other voice and acting work allowed Bean to finance the Pacific Resident Theater Ensemble in Venice, where he appeared with his third wife, actress Alley Mills.

He had a daughter, Michele, from his first marriage to Jacqueline de Sibour, and sons Max and Ezekiel and daughter Susannah from his marriage to Carolyn Maxwell.

FILE - In this Nov. 15, 1977, file photo, Buck Henry and Teri Garr appear at the opening of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in New York. Henry, the versatile writer, director and character actor who co-wrote and appeared in "The Graduate'' has died in Los Angeles. He was 89. Henry's wife, Irene Ramp, told The Washington Post that his death was due to a heart attack. (AP Photo/Ira Schwarz, File)

Two-time Emmy-nominated actress Paula Kelly has died at 77

LOS ANGELES — Actress, singer and dancer Paula Kelly, who earned an Emmy Award nomination on the sitcom "Night Court" and co-starred with Chita Rivera and Shirley MacLaine in the film "Sweet Charity," has died. She was 77.

Kelly died Sunday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to Los Angeles' Ebony Repertory Theatre.

Kelly earned a best supporting actress Emmy nod in 1984 for portraying public defender Liz Williams on the first season of NBC's "Night Court" and received another in 1989 for playing a lesbian on the ABC miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place."

Kelly made her Broadway debut in the 1964 musical "Something More!" directed by Jule Styne and starring Barbara Cook. She later shared the stage with Morgan Freeman on Broadway in "The Dozens." One of her most important roles was Helene in "Sweet Charity," which she played onstage in London and then reprised in Bob Fosse's feature film debut.

Her other film credits include "The Andromeda Strain," "Top of the Heap" and "Soylent Green." Her vast TV credits also include "Santa Barbara," "Mission: Impossible," "Kojak" and "The Golden Girls."

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