Beverly Garland 'My Three Sons' actress dies at 82

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Beverly Garland, the B-movie actress who starred in 1950s cult hits like "Swamp Women" and "Not of This Earth" and who went on to play Fred MacMurray's TV wife on "My Three Sons," has died. She was 82.

Garland died Friday at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy illness, her son-in-law Packy Smith told the Los Angeles Times.

Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic "D.O.A.," launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.

She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget exploitation films such as "The Alligator People" and a number of Roger Corman movies including "Gunslinger,""It Conquered the World" and "Naked Paradise."


"I never considered myself very much of a passive kind of actress," she said in a 1985 interview with Fangoria magazine. "I was never very comfortable in love scenes, never comfortable playing a sweet, lovable lady."

Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby's wife in the short-lived sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show" in the mid-'60s.

She went on to be cast in "My Three Sons" as the second wife of MacMurray's widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons of the popular series that aired from 1960 to 1972.

Her television credits also include "Remington Steele,""Scarecrow and Mrs. King,""Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,""Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "7th Heaven."

Garland was born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1926, and grew up in Glendale. She became Beverly Garland when she married actor Richard Garland. They were divorced in 1953 after less than four years of marriage.

In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, and the couple built a mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. Garland, whose husband died in 1999, remained involved in running the North Hollywood hotel.

She was the honorary mayor of North Hollywood and served on the boards of the California Tourism Corp. and the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Al Wilson died he was 68

Al Wilson, the soul singer and songwriter who had a number of 1970s hits including “Show and Tell,” has died. He was 68. June 19, 1939-April 21, 2008

Wilson died Monday of kidney failure at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, according to his son, Tony Wilson of Yucaipa.

“He was always singing,” his son said. “He would call me in the middle of the night with a new song that he had written.”

Wilson was born on June 19, 1939, in Meridian, Miss. He sang in the church choir as a boy and had his own spiritual singing quartet. His family moved to San Bernardino in 1958 and he found work as a mail carrier, office clerk and janitor.

He toured for four years with the group Johnny "Legs" Harris and the Statesmen before joining the Navy. Following a two-year stint, he moved to Los Angeles and played with the Jewels and their successor group, the Rollers. A drummer, he also worked with the instrumental group the Souls.


In 1966, he was spotted by manager Marc Gordon, who introduced him to singer Johnny Rivers, who signed him to his Soul City label. Wilson’s first single, “The Snake” in 1968, was a hit and was followed by “Do What You Gotta Do.”

“Show and Tell” was released in 1973 and the next year was No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

Wilson charted with several other 1970s singles, including “La La Peace Song,” “I’ve Got a Feeling (We’ll Be Seeing Each Other Again)” and “Count the Days.”

In later years he continued to tour clubs in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

In addition to his son, Wilson is survived by his wife, Patricia; daughters Alene Harris and Sharon Burley; a brother, Eddie Wilson; sisters Lottie Ross, Ruby Conyers and Maebell Cole, and 13 grandchildren.

Charlton Heston died he was 84

Charlton Heston was born John Charles Carter. He died he was 84(October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008). Heston was an American actor of film, theater and television.[3]
he is known for having played heroic roles, such as Moses in The Ten Commandments, Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in El Cid, and Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the 1950s and 1960s he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. Initially a moderate Democrat, he later supported conservative politics and was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.

Heston died on Saturday, April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills, California, with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, by his side. He was also survived by his son, Fraser Clarke Heston, and an adopted daughter, Holly Ann Heston. The cause of death was pneumonia.[41][42][43] Heston's family released a statement, reading, "Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life. He was known for his chiselled jaw, broad shoulders and resonating voice, and, of course, for the roles he played. No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, to his profession and to his country."[44] Early tributes came in from leading figures; President George W. Bush called Heston "man of character and integrity, with a big heart", adding, "He served his country during World War II, marched in the civil rights movement, led a labor union and vigorously defended Americans’ Second Amendment rights [to bear arms]."[44] Former First Lady Nancy Reagan, wife of former President Ronald Reagan (who died in 2004 from complications of Alzheimer's disease) said that she was "heartbroken" over Heston's death and released a statement, reading, "I will never forget Chuck as a hero on the big screen in the roles he played, but more importantly I considered him a hero in life for the many times that he stepped up to support Ronnie in whatever he was doing."[44]
Heston's funeral was held a week later on April 12, 2008 in a ceremony which was attended by 250 people including Nancy Reagan and Hollywood stars such as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olivia de Havilland, Keith Carradine, Pat Boone, Tom Selleck, Oliver Stone and Rob Reiner.[45][46] He was cremated.

Ivan Dixon died at 76

Ivan Nathaniel Dixon III was born in Harlem, the son of a grocery store owner. When he was young, Dixon lived in the brownstone at 518 W. 150th St. in Harlem. Living on the same block were Josh White, Ralph Ellison and the Hines brothers (Gregory and Maurice).[2] He graduated from the Lincoln Academy in Gaston County, North Carolina, [3] and went on to earn a drama degree from North Carolina Central University in 1954,[2] where the theater troupe is known as the Ivan Dixon Players.[3] In 1957, he appeared on Broadway in the William Saroyan play Cave Dwellers. In 1959, he co-starred in Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking drama Raisin in the Sun, the first produced Broadway play by an African-American woman.

In his best-known role, Dixon appeared as POW Staff Sergeant Ivan Kinchloe in the ensemble of the hit television program Hogan's Heroes. "Kinch" was the communications specialist; he was frequently ordered by Colonel Hogan (portrayed by Bob Crane) to encode a message and send it to Allied Headquarters in London, a submarine, or to the French underground. Dixon played Kinchloe from 1965 to 1970, making him the only original actor on Hogan's Heroes not to remain for the entire series. Hogan's Heroes ended in 1971, by which time Kenneth Washington had succeeded Dixon.

From 1970 to 1993, Dixon worked primarily as a television director on such series and TV-movies as Trouble Man, The Waltons, The Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman, Magnum, P.I., and The A-Team. He also directed the controversial 1973 feature film The Spook Who Sat by the Door based on a novel by Sam Greenlee, about the first black CIA agent, who takes his espionage knowledge and uses it to lead a black guerrilla operation in Chicago, Illinois. The New York Times wrote in 2008.
Although The Spook caused controversy and was soon pulled from theaters, it later gained cult status as a bootleg video and in 2004 was released on DVD. At that time Mr. Dixon told The Times that the movie had tried only to depict black anger, not to suggest armed revolt as a solution.[2]
Occasionally returning to acting, he played a doctor and leader of a guerrilla movement in the controversial 1987 ABC miniseries Amerika, set in post-Soviet invasion Nebraska.

After his career as an actor and director, Dixon was the owner-operator of radio station KONI (FM) in Maui. In 2001, he left the islands for health reasons and sold the radio station in 2002.[4]
Ivan Dixon died on March 16, 2008, aged 76, Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina due to complications from kidney failure.[5]

Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died she was 76

She was born Martha Sharp Crawford aboard a railcar in Manassas, Va., on Sept. 1, 1932, daughter of utilities tycoon George Crawford, who died when she was 4. In addition to her two children from her first marriage, Sunny von Bulow is survived by Cosima Pavoncelli, a daughter from her marriage to von Bulow. Pavoncelli sided with her father during the trials.

NEW YORK — Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, an heiress who spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband, died Saturday at age 76.

She died at a nursing home in New York, her children said in a statement issued by family spokeswoman Maureen Connelly.

Sunny von Bulow was a personification of romantic notions about high society _ a stunning heiress who brought her American millions to marriages with men who gave her honored old European names.

But she ended her days in a coma, showing no sign of awareness as she was visited by her children and tended around the clock by nurses.

In the 1980s, she was the offstage presence that haunted her husband's two sensational trials in Newport and Providence, R.I.

At the first trial, in 1982, Claus von Bulow was convicted of trying twice to kill her by injecting her with insulin at their estate in Newport, R.I. That verdict was thrown out on appeal, and he was acquitted at a second trial in 1985.

The murder case split Newport society, produced lurid headlines and was later made into the 1990 film, "Reversal of Fortune," starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons.

Claus von Bulow is now living in London, "mostly taking care of his grandchildren," said Alan Dershowitz, the defense lawyer who handled the appeal and won his acquittal at the second trial. He wrote the book "Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bulow Case," on which the movie was based. Dershowitz said there was "overwhelming" evidence that her coma was self-induced _ caused by a "large ingestion of drugs, and Claus had nothing to do with it," Dershowitz said.

"There are no winners in a case like this," he added.

Claus von Bulow's main accusers were his wife's children by a previous marriage to Austrian Prince Alfred von Auersperg _ Princess Annie-Laurie "Ala" von Auersperg Isham and Prince Alexander von Auersperg. They renewed the charges against their stepfather in a civil lawsuit a month after his acquittal.

Two years later, Claus von Bulow agreed to give up any claims to his wife's estimated $25 million-to-$40 million fortune and to the $120,000-a-year income of a trust she set up for him. He also agreed to divorce her, leave the country and never profit from their story.

Sales of Sunny von Bulow's property brought $4.2 million from her oceanfront estate in Newport, $6.25 million from her 12-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and $11.5 million from the art and antiques from the homes.

Prosecutors contended that Claus von Bulow wanted to get rid of his wife to inherit a large chunk of her wealth and be free to marry a mistress. The defense countered by painting Sunny von Bulow, who suffered from low blood sugar, as an alcoholic and pill popper who drank herself into a coma.

Claus Von Bulow was accused of injecting his wife with insulin first in December 1979, causing a coma from which she revived. Prosecutors said he tried again a year later, on Dec. 21, 1980, and the 49-year-old heiress fell into what her children on Saturday called "a persistent vegetative state." more

Paul Benedict died he was 70

Paul Benedict (September 17, 1938 – December 1, 2008) was an American character actor who made numerous appearances in television and movies beginning in the 1960s. He is probably best recognized for his roles as The Number Painter on the PBS children's show Sesame Street, and as the quirky English neighbor "Harry Bentley" on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons.
Benedict was born in Silver City, New Mexico, the son of Alma Marie (née Loring), a journalist, and Mitchell M. Benedict, a doctor.[1] He grew up in Massachusetts. As a young man, he suffered from acromegaly, a pituitary disorder that affects the extremities and face, which accounted for his slightly oversized jaw and large nose.

As could be heard in his other film and TV roles, he had a slight English accent even when not in character as Bentley. Benedict played the director of the Richard III production in the 1977 movie The Goodbye Girl starring Richard Dreyfuss, in which Richard was to be portrayed in the play as a stereotypical gay man. He was in a short scene in the 1984 mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap, playing the awkward desk clerk who checks in the band. In the 1990 film The Freshman, he played the condescending NYU film school professor of Matthew Broderick's main character. He also made a memorable appearance as the incorrectly assumed title character in the 1996 film Waiting for Guffman, another mockumentary involving many of the same writers and actors.



Benedict also played the role of a slave trader in Dino De Laurentiis' Mandingo opposite James Mason and Perry King in 1975. Perhaps his best known movie role was of the reverend Lundquist in the 1972 Sydney Pollack film Jeremiah Johnson.
In addition to his varied film and television roles, Benedict was an accomplished theater actor as well, having appeared on Broadway multiple times, notably in Eugene O'Neill's 2-character play Hughie in 1996 (performing with Al Pacino) at Circle in the Square, and more recently in The Music Man in 2000–2001.In 2007, Benedict performed as "Hirst" in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2]



As a director, Benedict directed Frank Conroy's Any Given Day on Broadway. Off-Broadway, he directed the original production of Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, and Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney's The Cathy and Mo Show, which won an Obie Award.[3]
On December 1, 2008, Benedict was found dead at his home by his brother in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He was 70 years old.

Odetta dies at 77 she was an American music legend

Known as Odetta, was an African-American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement." Her musical repertoire consists largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s, she was a formative influence on dozens of artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Janis Joplin.

She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in Los Angeles, California, and studied music at Los Angeles City College. Having operatic training from the age of 13, her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester; she later joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow in 1949.

In 2008, at the age of 77, she launched another national tour, with concerts in Albany, New York and other cities, singing strongly and confidently from a wheelchair.[4] [5] Her set in recent years includes "This Little Light of Mine (I'm Gonna Let It Shine)",[6] Lead Belly's "The Bourgeois Blues",[7] [8] [6] (Something Inside) So Strong", "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" and "House of the Rising Sun".[5]
In November 2008, Odetta's health began to decline and she began receiving treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. She was slated to perform at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009. [9]
On December 02, 2008, Odetta died from heart disease in New York City.[

December 31 1930 - December 2 2008),