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Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under the first President Bush, died on Saturday at 80. Eagleburger was nominated following the resignation of James Baker in the summer of 1992 and held the post for five months. [AP] More »
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Jack Kevorkian, the physician and assisted-suicide advocate who claimed to have helped 130 people kill themselves and served eight years in prison for second degree murder after letting a 60 Minutes crew film a suicide, died last night the old-fashioned way: from a blood clot. More »
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Frank Buckles, the last living American veteran of World War I, died on Sunday at age 110. He was one of three living WWI vets worldwide, including a 109-year-old Australian man and a 110-year-old woman from Great Britain. Buckles, who drove a tank in the war, had lied about his age (claiming to be older than his 16 years) to enlist. [Reuters] More »
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The aging bandit who dragged an oxygen tank to his Madison Avenue crime spree—then died in his shiny black Cadillac during a high-speed car chase with the cops—was a career criminal and jailhouse preacher. More »
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The actor, director of movies including Easy Rider, hellraiser and Hollywood legend died today at his home in Venice, California after a long battle with cancer. He was 74. [Washington Post] More »
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Sandy Herold, owner of a 200-lb. chimp that mauled and blinded her friend last year, has died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. "Her heart, which had been broken so many times before, could take no more," said her lawyer. [AP] More »
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Oscar-nominated actress Lynn Redgrave has died at the age of 67. Famed for her title role in 1966's Georgy Girl and 1998's Gods and Monsters, Redgrave died in her Connecticut home on Sunday night. More »
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Malcolm McClaren, manager for the Sex Pistols, punk rock pioneer, composer, and fascinating character, died in New York today. He was 64. Attached, Malcolm takes (far, far too much) credit for inventing punk rock and The Sex Pistols. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5512720&view=rss&microfeed=true Jaime Escalante, the teacher who inspired Stand and Deliver, has died at 79. More »
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Alex Chilton is dead. His old band, Big Star, made three perfect albums. There are a thousand stories of excess and studio-trashing and general Memphis insanity. I just wanted to play you some songs of his that I like. More »
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Indie musician Mark Linkous—psych-folk pioneer of acclaimed band Sparklehorse—committed suicide last night, his second known attempt and the second time he has been legally dead. He was in his forties. More »
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Representative John Murtha is dead. The Pennsylvania Democrat, 77, died in an Arlington, Virgina hospital after complications following gall bladder surgery. More »
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David Brown, film producer, magazine editor, short story author, and husband of Helen Gurley Brown, died in New York yesterday. He was 93. More »
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Howard Zinn, historian and author of A People's History of the United States, has died of a heart attack. He was 87. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5458465&view=rss&microfeed=true A moment of silence for Azaria Jagger, whose long-time Flintstone multivitamin pill addiction culminated in a sugary-sweet calcium-fortified death today. In her final moment, she tweeted: More »
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Born into the Johnson & Johnson clan's billions, Casey Johnson was among the first celebutantes to decamp to Hollywood in search of 21C fame. She died alone in a crumbling Mulholland Drive mansion, her body undiscovered for days. More »
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Her story was a Hollywood dream: the prodigiously talented teenager who worked her way from regional theater to big-screen blockbusters alongside Oscar nominees. But then her star power fizzled, her personal life disintegrated, and she met a grisly end. More »
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We were rather bullish on it before, but a government-run insurance option is now dead in the water. More »
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Well, there was an interesting life. Nat Finkelstein, Factory photographer, is dead, at 76. More »
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Susan Atkins died in prison last night at 61. Atkins was sentenced to death in in 1971 for her role in the Tate/LeBianca murders. She was denied parole for the last time on September 2. More »
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Irving Kristol, the godfather of Neoconservatism, is dead at 89. We have him to thank for Reaganomics, the Bush Doctrine, and Bill Kristol. More »
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Sadly it often takes death to show us what giants walk among us. Few Americans knew about the genius of Mike Bongiorno, called Italy's "Quiz King." More »
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Dominick Dunne, chronicler of crime, celebrity, and the intersection of the two, has died at 83. Dunne had been suffering from bladder cancer. More »
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Edward Kennedy, the last surviving son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, was the third-longest serving US Senator of all time. He was a drunken degenerate. And he might've been the best argument for the US Senate ever elected. More »
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Conservative political journalist and long-time syndicated columnist Robert Novak died early this morning after battling brain cancer for more than a year. More »
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John Hughes, director of generation-defining class conscious teen comedies, is dead of a heart attack, at age 59. More »
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Screenwriter and novelist Budd Schulberg died Wednesday. He was among the first generation to be born Hollywood royalty, and he wrote what is probably the only classic movie business novel to have never been adapted for the screen. More »
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Sandford Dody, author of multiple best-sellers, died July 4 at 90 years old. If his name is unfamiliar, it may be because it did not appear on the covers of his books. More »
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Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the "architect" of the Vietnam War, died this morning. He was 93. More »
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Golden Girls star Bea Arthur, née Bernice Frankel, died at home in Los Angeles at the age of 86 today. She passed away surrounded by family members. She will be loudly mourned by the gays. More »
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Irving R. Levine, NBC's reserved, bow-tied business reporter during the '70s and '80s, has died, partly of old age and partly of shame at the way his former beat is being covered by tools. More »
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George Butler, who documented Arnold Schwarzenegger's early career as a bodybuilder in the documentary film Pumping Iron, was one of the notables who died in 2008, according to PBS host Charlie Rose. Oops, wrong Butler! More »
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Studs Terkel, Chicago's beloved author, interviewer, activist, radio host, and historian, died today at 96. Terkel's books Hard Times, Working, and The Good War are essential reading for students of American history in the first half of the 20th Century. He was a legendary storyteller and interviewer, and it's amazing to remember that not only did he publish his first book when he was already 55, but he then lived on to publish a dozen more, including one, P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening, set to be released next month. "Take it easy, but take it." [Chicago Tribune, Related] More »
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Fred Baron, the attorney who rebuilt the Texas Democratic party and became famous, late in life, for his unfortunate help in covering up the extramarital affair of former Senator John Edwards, died Thursday of cancer. He was 61. Baron made a fortune in asbestos litigation, and used the funds to found the Texas Democratic Trust in 2005, among countless other philanthropic causes. In the Edwards affair, Baron was revealed as the source of the supposed "hush money" keeping mistress Rielle Hunter living in relative luxury. Baron fought corporations to the end, demanding that a pharmaceutical company allow him to use an experimental drug in his treatment. He won, but it didn't work. He won, but it didn't work. He is survived by his son Andrew, founder of the dumb internet video program Rocketboom. Andrew organized a movement to get his father the drug, enlisting Bill Clinton, Lance Armstrong, and John Kerry to help. [DallasNews] More »
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When we remember the New York Sun, we'll try to remember the great local reporting and the fantastic sports page and the serious and smart arts coverage. Not so much the ideological inanity and loud constant taking of the precisely wrong side of every important issue of this miserable era. In trying to remember them that way, of course, one is best advised to skip most of their farewell edition. The goodbyes are not self-pitying, at least, but they reveal a newspaper that imagines it had some small role in the destruction of this country while turning a blind eye to the many myriad ways they could've continued on their crusade if they hadn't been so utterly out of touch. More »
]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5056937&view=rss&microfeed=true Don LaFontaine, one of the best voice actors in history, is dead at 68. LaFontaine began writing and voicing movie trailers in the late 1960s, inventing, supposedly, most of the beloved and hilarious cliches ("in a world," "one man stands...") that still introduce us to whatever summer Hollywood garbage we'll be enjoying this Fourth of July. There are countless amusing LaFontaine parodies, commercials, and jokey news segments available on YouTube, but it seems more appropriate to enjoy his work on its own merits, not just as camp. So here's the classic theatrical trailer for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. More »
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Some weekend. Isaak Hayes died today at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 65. His wife found him unconscious next to his treadmill, which was still running. Paramedics could not revive him and he was pronounced dead shortly after 2:00 p.m., according to the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. Among the highlights of his career, Hayes won an Oscar for his extraordinary theme to 1971's Shaft. And won over a whole new generation of fans with his role as the beloved Chef on South Park. Cause of death has not been reported yet, but foul play is not suspected. I'll update as details come in. [CNN] More »
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Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away in a Chicago hospital this morning a week after being hospitalized with pneumonia, his publicist Danica Smith confirmed. He was 50. The sad news comes as a shock since newspaper reports just yesterday stated that he was responding well to treatment and would be released soon. More »
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Conservative talking head and former George W. Bush press secretary Tony Snow died of colon cancer today. He was 53. After a decade at Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, Snow served 17 months in the Bush administration, from May 2006 through September 2007. "Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush 'something of an embarrassment' in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's 'lackluster' domestic policy." More »
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Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, the wrestler and restaurateur who essentially introduced America to Japanese food with his Benihaha chain, died today in New York. He was 69. Aoki raised the money to start his first Benihana by driving an ice cream truck in Harlem, which is awesome. More recently, he's been known to New Yorkers through his children, model Devon and annoying scenester DJ Steve. He faced deportation in 2006, and you could do worse for an introduction to his colorful life than this New York story on that incident. It begins, ominously: "'My daughter Grace is telling me, Daddy, your wife is going to poison you to death. Be careful what you eat,' says Rocky Aoki with an odd, amused grin." [AP] More »
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