Nicolette Goulet died she was 51

Nicolette Goulet (June 9, 1956 - April 17, 2008) was an Canadian-American soap opera actress.

Goulet got her start in acting on the television series Ryan's Hope with the role of Mary Ryan Fenelli in 1979. She was the fourth actress to portray the character. She also appeared on three other soaps: "Search for Tomorrow" as Kathy Parker Phillips Taper #2 from 1980 until 1982; on "As the World Turns" as Casey Reynolds in 1984, and on "The Guiding Light" as Meredith Reade Bauer from 1987 to 1989.

Goulet was the daughter of the late singer-actor Robert Goulet and his first wife Louise Longmore. Nicolette Goulet was married to Tim Fowlar and had two children, Jordan and Solange.

On April 17, 2008, less than six months after her father's death, Goulet died as a result of breast cancer.

Eddy Arnold Country Superstar Dies at 89

Richard Edward Arnold (known as Eddy Arnold) (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008) was an American country music singer. He was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee, he made his first radio appearance in 1936. During his childhood, he lost both his father and the family farm. When he turned 18, he left home to try to make his mark in the music world.

Arnold's formative musical years included early struggles to gain recognition until he landed a job as the lead male vocalist for the Pee Wee King band. By 1943, Arnold had become a solo star on the Grand Ole Opry. He was then signed by RCA Victor. In December 1944, he cut his first record. Although all of his early records sold well, his initial big hit did not come until 1946 with "That's How Much I Love You." In common with many other country and western singers of the time, he had a folksy nickname: "The Tennessee Plowboy."

Managed by Colonel Tom Parker (who later went on to control the career of Elvis Presley), Arnold began to dominate country music. In 1947-48, he had 13 of the top 20 songs. He successfully made the transition from radio to television, appearing frequently in the new medium, hosting The Eddy Arnold Show and starring in Eddy Arnold Time.

In 1955, he upset many in the country music establishment by going to New York to record with the Hugo Winterhalter Orchestra. The pop-oriented arrangements of "Cattle Call" and "The Richest Man (in the World)", however, helped to expand his appeal beyond its country base.

With the advent of rock and roll, Arnold's record sales dipped in the late 1950s. Along with RCA Victor label-mate Jim Reeves, he continued to try to court a wider audience by using pop-sounding, string-laced arrangements, a style that would come to be known as the Nashville sound.


There are several reasons for Arnold's great success. From the beginning he stood out from his contemporaries in the world of country singers. He never wore gaudy, glittering outfits. He sang from his diaphragm, not through his nose. He avoided the standard honky-tonk themes, preferring instead to sing songs that explored the intricacies of love.

Arnold also benefitted from his association with excellent musicians. The distinctive steel guitar of Roy Wiggins highlighted early recordings. Charles Grean, once employed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, played bass and wrote early arrangements, adding violins for the first time in 1956. Chet Atkins played on many of Arnold's records, even after he started serving as producer.

Bassist Bob Moore, the most recorded musician in history, first performed on the road with Arnold on the 1954 RCA Caravan and later performed on 75% of Arnold's hit recordings. Arnold also benefited from the management of Col. Parker, who guided his first career, and Purcell, who masterminded the second.

The most important factor for Arnold's success, however, was his voice. Steve Sholes, who produced all of Arnold's early hits, called him a natural singer, comparing him to the likes of Bing Crosby and Enrico Caruso. Arnold worked hard perfecting his natural ability. A review of his musical career shows his progression from fledgling singer to polished performer.

Arnold's longevity was exceptional. For more than 50 years, he transcended changing musical tastes. His later concerts attracted three generations of fans. To some he also served as a role model; in a field often awash with alcohol and drugs, he remained temperate.

Arnold was honored with induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966[1], was voted the first Country Music Association's Entertainer Of The Year the following year, and received the Academy of Country Music's Pioneer Award in 1985. Arnold has sold more than 85 million records and had 147 songs on the charts, including 28 No. 1 hits on Billboard's "Country Singles" chart. Among his recordings are songs for mothers and children, hymns, show tunes, and novelty numbers. Arnold is best known for his way with a love song.

In 2003, Arnold ranked #22 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.


With 146 songs on the country charts -- including 28 number one hits -- Arnold ranks among the most popular country singers in U.S. history. Only George Jones had more individual hits on the country charts but, according to a formula derived by Joel Whitburn, Arnold is the all-time leader in an overall rankings for hits and their time on the charts.


Eddy Arnold married the former Sally Gayhart in November 1942. She preceded him in death on March 11, 2008, following his hip replacement surgery.

Arnold died at 5AM on May 8, 2008, in Nashville, Tennessee. Both Eddy and Sally were survived by their children, "Dickie" and Jo Ann, as well as two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren

John Phillip Law died he was 70

John Phillip Law (September 7, 1937 – May 13, 2008) was an American film actor, with more than a hundred movie roles to his credit.Law was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Phyllis Sallee, and the brother of actor Thomas Augustus Law.

He was best known for his roles as the blind angel Pygar in the 1968 science fiction cult classic Barbarella, and as news anchor Robin Stone in the 1971 The Love Machine. (The latter reteamed him with Alexandra Hay, his costar from the 1968 "acid comedy" Skidoo.) He also gained attention in the title role of the 1968 thriller Danger: Diabolik and as a Russian sailor stranded in a New England village in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.

Tall (six-foot-five) and handsome, with steel blue eyes, Law became a sex symbol in the 1960s. He was a VIP guest at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and in Hollywood society. While he never achieved superstar status, he became a popular action hero, particularly in the Italian movie market, with movies ranging from science fiction and fantasy to comedy, westerns, drama, and war movies.

In addition to Barbarella, a few of Law's other movies have become cult classics, including The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Von Richthofen and Brown, Death Rides a Horse and Attack Force Z.

Law co-starred in Roger Corman’s 1970 Von Richthofen and Brown. He played Richthofen opposite Don Stroud's Roy Brown. Corman used Lynn Garrison’s Irish aviation facility, complete with replica World War One aircraft. Garrison taught Law the basics of flying so that he could manage to take off and land the aircraft, making some of the footage more realistic.

Two of Law's films, Danger: Diabolik and Space Mutiny, were also featured in the movie-mocking TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

In 2001 he appeared in Roman Coppola's directorial debut CQ, a homage to the Italian spy/sci-fi B-movies in which Law often starred during the 1960s.

In his personal life, he was once married to actress Shawn Ryan, and they have a daughter, Dawn. At the beginning of his career in the ’60s, Law lived in a 1924 Los Feliz mansion with his brother, Tom, who had been the road manager for Peter, Paul and Mary. The brothers rented rooms to up-and-coming singers and artists, including Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol and Tiny Tim, turning the home into a vibrant salon of emerging pop-culture icons. Life at the Castle, as it was known, was documented in “Flashing on the Sixties,” a 1987 collection of photos and text by Tom’s former wife, Lisa Law.

Besides his brother, Law is survived by daughter, Dawn, and a grandson.

Mel Ferrer died he was 90 years old.

August 25, 1917 – June 2, 2008) was an American actor, film director and film producer.
Melchor Gaston Ferrer[1] was born in Elberon, New Jersey, of Spanish and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (1857–1920), was born in Cuba and was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City.[2] His American mother, the former Mary Matilda Irene O'Donohue (1878–1967),[3] was a daughter of coffee broker Joseph J. O'Donohue, New York's City Commissioner of Parks, a founder of the Coffee Exchange, and a founder of the Brooklyn-New York Ferry. An ardent opponent of Prohibition, Irene Ferrer was named, in 1934, the New York State chairman of the Citizens Committee for Sane Liquor Laws.[4]

Ferrer had three siblings. His elder sister was Dr. M. Irené Ferrer, a cardiologist and educator, who helped refine the cardiac catheter and electrocardiogram.[1] His brother, Dr. Jose M. Ferrer, was also a surgeon. Another sister, Teresa (Terry) Ferrer, was the religion editor of The New York Herald Tribune and education editor of Newsweek.[5][6] The family is not related to actors José or Miguel Ferrer.

His mother's family, the O'Donohues, were prominent Roman Catholics. Mel Ferrer's aunt Marie Louise O'Donohue (Mrs. Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr.) was named a papal countess,[7] and his mother's sister, Teresa Riley O'Donohue, a leading figure in American Catholic charities and welfare organizations, was granted permission by Pope Pius XI to install a private chapel in her New York City apartment.[8]

Ferrer was privately educated at the Bovée School in New York (one of his classmates was the future author Louis Auchincloss) and Canterbury Prep School in Connecticut before attending Princeton University until his sophomore year. At that time he dropped out to devote more time to acting. He also worked as an editor of a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book, Tito's Hats (Garden City Publishing, 1940).[9]


Ferrer began acting in summer stock as a teenager and in 1937 won the Theatre Intime award for best new play by a Princeton undergraduate; the play was called Awhile to Work and co-starred another college student, Frances Pilchard, who would become Ferrer's first wife that same year.[10] At age twenty-one he was appearing on the Broadway stage as a chorus dancer, making his debut there as an actor two years later. After a bout with polio, Ferrer worked as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and moved to Mexico to work on a novel.

Eventually he returned to Broadway and then became involved in motion pictures, directing more than ten feature films and acting in more than eighty. As a producer, he had notable success with the well-regarded film Wait Until Dark (1967), starring Audrey Hepburn.[11] In 1945 Ferrer made a modest directing debut with The Girl of the Limberlost, a low-budget black-and-white film for Columbia. He returned to Broadway to star in Strange Fruit, based on the novel by Lillian Smith. He made his screen acting debut in Lost Boundaries (1949), and as an actor is best remembered for his roles as the injured puppeteer in the musical Lili (1953, starring Leslie Caron), as the villainous Marquis de Maynes in Scaramouche (1952) and as Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1956, co-starring with his then-wife, Audrey Hepburn).

Ferrer never achieved major stardom and later turned towards television, doing some directing for the series The Farmer's Daughter (1963–1966) starring Inger Stevens, but is best remembered for his role opposite Jane Wyman as Angela Channing's attorney and briefly, her husband, Phillip Erikson, in Falcon Crest from 1981 to 1984, as well as directing a few of the series episodes. He was written off the show in 1984 as having been one of the family members killed in the plane crash targeting Richard Channing David Selby's character. He also played Dr. Brogli in a 1979 episode of Return of the Saint.

For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Mel Ferrer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6268 Hollywood Blvd.

A resident of Carpinteria, California, Ferrer died at a convalescent home in Santa Barbara on June 2, 2008.[11] He died as a result of heart failure. He was 90 years old.

Van Johnson died he was 92

Charles "Van" Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during World War II.

Johnson was the embodiment of the "boy next door," playing "the red-haired, freckle-faced soldier, sailor or B-25 bomber pilot who used to live down the street" in MGM movies during the war years.[1]

Johnson married former stage actress Eve Abbott (1914—2004) on January 25, 1947, the day after her divorce from actor Keenan Wynn was finalized.[2] The newlyweds had a daughter, Schuyler, one year later, but the marriage ended bitterly. "She wiped me out in the ugliest divorce in Hollywood history," Johnson said.[2]

Books written in recent years have claimed that Johnson was bisexual. At the time of Eve Johnson's death, she was quoted as saying that her marriage had been engineered by MGM: "They needed their `big star' to be married to quell rumours about his sexual preferences, and unfortunately, I was `It' - the only woman he would marry".[3] The Johnsons separated in 1961, [4] and divorced in 1968.[3]

Johnson underwent treatment for skin cancer in 1963.

He died on December 12, 2008 of natural causes at the Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living center in Nyack, New York.[4]

Bettie Page Dies she was 85

Bettie Page (April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008)[2] was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She was also one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine.
"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told the Associated Press. Her later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution.[3][4] While she faded into obscurity in the 1960s after converting to Christianity and serving as a Baptist missionary in Angola,[5] she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s and had a significant cult following. Her look, including her jet black hair and trademark bangs, has been iconic within the rockabilly subculture and has influenced many artists.

On December 6, 2008, Page was hospitalized in critical condition according to Mark Roesler, her long-time friend and business agent. Roesler was quoted by the Associated Press as saying Page had suffered a heart attack and by Los Angeles television station KNBC as claiming Page was suffering from pneumonia. A family friend said Page was in a coma, a claim not denied by Roesler.[22][23] Page had been on life support since her heart attack in early December until her family agreed to discontinue it. She died at 6:41 PM PST on December 11, 2008.[3][9]

Richard Martin died he was 86

Thomas Richard Martin (January 30, 1922 – May 24, 2008) was an American comedian and director, best known for his role as the cohost of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.
Early in his career, Martin was a staff writer for Duffy's Tavern, a radio situation comedy. In 1952, Martin and Dan Rowan formed the comedy team Rowan and Martin, and played in nightclubs across the United States and overseas. They were a quick and easy match; their first comedy routine, in which Martin played a drunk heckling a Shakespearean performer, was a mainstay of their live act for years. The duo could frequently be seen as host-performers on NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, alternating with Martin and Lewis and other more established names. In 1958 they starred in a feature film, Hal Kanter's comedy western Once Upon a Horse, which failed to catch on with moviegoers. In 1960, their contract with NBC was cancelled four years early by mutual consent.
1962 found Martin working solo, playing next-door neighbor to Lucille Ball in her comeback sitcom The Lucy Show, a role he played intermittently until 1964. The duo returned to the nightclub circuit until 1966, when they were tapped to host the summer-replacement series for The Dean Martin Show.

Martin also established himself as an efficient comedy director. Starting on The Bob Newhart Show, he directed for over a dozen series. Martin later became the chief director of the 1980s sitcom Newhart.
He married Playboy playmate Dolly Read on August 22, 1971. They divorced in 1975, but remarried in 1978 and remained married until his death. Martin was formerly married to Peggy Connelly. He has two sons, Richard Martin and Cary Martin.

Martin died on May 24, 2008 of breathing complications in Santa Monica, California. He lost the use of a lung as a teenager and suffered respiratory problems late in life.[1]