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Topic Archive: Obituaries
Council happy with Lindsey Councilwoman Janice Hahn says, "We have great confidence in Gina Marie Lindsey," but acknowledges the way contracts are issued at LAX...
Posted May 8, 2008 09:10 AM
E.J. Bavasi was the last general manager of the Dodgers in Brooklyn (and their first in Los Angeles), then created the San Diego Padres and...
Posted May 1, 2008 07:53 PM
In the early 1990s, my beat at the Times was to rove California's small towns and far-flung regions and cover stories that needed telling. Just...
Posted April 29, 2008 09:12 AM
Animation specialist Charles Solomon writes in the LAT obituary: Oliver Martin "Ollie" Johnston Jr., the last living member of the celebrated "Nine Old Men" of...
Posted April 15, 2008 02:37 PM
Real name: John Charles Carter. Passing: Saturday at home in Beverly Hills. Previous diagnosis: Neurological symptoms "consistent with Alzheimer’s disease." IMDb credits: 1941-2007. Selected films:...
Posted April 6, 2008 09:11 PM
Spens reported in the 1990s for KNBC, KCBS and KNX Newsradio and was known for wearing a trench coat and walking while delivering his televised...
Posted April 6, 2008 07:36 PM
Brent Lovrien, 35, was remembered Friday as a hero during emotional services downtown that were carried live on some Los Angeles TV stations. Lovie,...
Posted April 6, 2008 07:26 PM
Dith Pran was the Cambodian journalist whose ordeal in the Khmer Rouge death regime was depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields" and, earlier,...
Posted March 30, 2008 01:54 PM
The firefighter who suffered fatal injuries today in Westchester was identified this evening as Brent A. Lovrien. He was a 10-year veteran assigned to the...
Posted March 26, 2008 10:37 PM
Back when boxing was a big spectator sport in Los Angeles, Art Aragon fought major bouts at the Olympic Auditorium, Wrigley Field and Hollywood's Legion...
Posted March 25, 2008 11:58 PM
Contents of SWAT report Reporter Eric Leonard obtained a copy from outside the LAPD, posts the PDF file and summarizes the conclusions, including a relaxation...
Posted March 24, 2008 09:02 AM
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP...
Posted March 18, 2008 04:25 PM
Mark over at LA Biz Observed hopped quickly on the death today of Roland Arnall, founder of subprime loan giant Ameriquest. Arnall has been a...
Posted March 17, 2008 04:55 PM
Latest round of Chick v. Cardenas Exchange of letters yesterday afternoon with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over gang programs. WitnessLA Jane Usher email invites suits...
Posted March 11, 2008 08:57 AM
Not too many musicians follow this particular career arc. Buddy Miles, who died yesterday in Austin of congestive heart failure, began as a session player...
Posted February 27, 2008 07:35 PM
Variety for sale Reed Elsevier wants to sell Reed Business Information and get far away from the advertising-driven market. In addition to Variety, this puts...
Posted February 21, 2008 09:05 AM
Holiday hours today so no Morning Buzz, but stuff has still been piling up on my desk. City Council members are lining up to object...
Posted February 18, 2008 11:40 AM
Randal Simmons funeral and burial See last night's post for details and street closures. Burke makes Parks endorsement official Retiring Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said...
Posted February 15, 2008 01:18 AM
Rep. Tom Lantos dies The Northern California congressman, who was 80, said recently he wouldn;t run again due to cancer of the esophagus. He passed...
Posted February 11, 2008 08:58 AM
Leo Greene chronicled his fight with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for more than a year in the pages of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he...
Posted February 10, 2008 02:39 AM
The LAT's Al Seib captures the memorable image of a sad day for the LAPD. It's posted on the Times website, along with a profile...
Posted February 7, 2008 06:06 PM
SWAT team veteran Randal Simmons, left, was killed this morning during a shootout with a suspect in the Valley community of Winnetka. He is the...
Posted February 7, 2008 08:30 AM
The bad run continues for founders of Southern California's fast-food icons. Yancey, who died Jan. 26 at age 96, and a partner reportedly used scrap...
Posted February 2, 2008 03:22 PM
Schwed spent 11 years as a writer and columnist at TV Guide, based in Hollywood, as well as working on-air on E! and the TV...
Posted January 31, 2008 03:14 PM
Russell “Rusty” Hammer, the former president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, died Monday evening after a long battle with a rare form...
Posted January 29, 2008 03:18 PM
Alumni of the old Herald-Examiner received word this weekend that photographer Steve Grayson passed away. I have no details, but someone who knew him circled...
Posted January 28, 2008 12:47 AM
Snow and record rain Snow closed I-5 and the California 58 dodge around the Grapevine, while four inches of rain fell at Santa Barbara in...
Posted January 24, 2008 08:45 AM
Fran Lewine covered the White House for Associated Press from Eisenhower to Carter. After a stop as deputy director of public affairs at Transportation under...
Posted January 21, 2008 11:55 PM
Dubious media events most likely to make tonight's local news At 8 am, the media masses are invited to Burbank to observe the casting of...
Posted January 17, 2008 01:03 AM
Let's have a round of applause for Richard Knerr, a USC graduate whose Pasadena company of fun brought the world the Frisbee, the Hula Hoop,...
Posted January 17, 2008 12:49 AM
Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose — rendered on the San Diego medical examiner's report as "cocaine toxicity." Turner was 76 when he succumbed...
Posted January 16, 2008 03:09 PM
The actor Brad Renfro was found dead at home on South Ogden Drive this morning by his girlfriend. Police said there was no suspicion of...
Posted January 15, 2008 05:59 PM
Johnny Podres was the most valuable player of the 1955 World Series that brought Brooklyn its first championship over the great Yankees teams, then went...
Posted January 14, 2008 01:06 AM
Carl Karcher essentially grew a single hot dog cart in Los Angeles into the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain. He and his wife Margaret opened Carl's...
Posted January 11, 2008 08:59 PM
It's the end of an era in Hollywood. Johnny Grant, the last of the "honorary mayors" for whom the ceremonial title still meant something, was...
Posted January 9, 2008 10:03 PM
State of Arnold's state Budget cuts to be proposed along with a hike in fees and a constitutional amendment that would impose a spending cap....
Posted January 9, 2008 08:55 AM
Noting the deaths of noteworthy Los Angeles figures and LAO's colleagues and friends in the media is just something we do here. Here are most...
Posted January 1, 2008 06:29 PM
The Kings held a moment of silence before tonight's game to honor Stu Nahan, the former sportscaster at channels 4, 5 and 7 and sports...
Posted December 26, 2007 10:57 PM
Irv Letofsky, former editor of the L.A. Times Sunday Calendar section and a critic for the Hollywood Reporter, died Sunday of liver cancer at age...
Posted December 24, 2007 10:25 AM
Tammara at Metroblogging Los Angeles posts about her connection to Laura Huxley, who she used to see around Hollywood Reservoir and who died on the...
Posted December 18, 2007 09:02 AM
The author and widow of Aldous Huxley has died in Los Angeles, according to family friends. She was 96. She was born in Italy and...
Posted December 14, 2007 05:11 PM
The ex-husband and abuser of Tina Turner died at home in suburban San Marcos in the San Diego area. Ike and Tina were a pretty...
Posted December 12, 2007 02:09 PM
The one-time vaudeville booker who became the agent for Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Barbra Streisand and other stars died of lung cancer Tuesday at home...
Posted December 12, 2007 01:32 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa's office says that Carol Baker Tharp, general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, has died. The mayor just released this statement: “Carol...
Posted November 26, 2007 12:08 PM
Mitch Harding co-created (with Mike Hodel in 1972) the long-running science fiction and writing show "Hour 25" on KPFK. Later at KCRW, he was the...
Posted November 22, 2007 05:15 PM
Weekend catch-up edition... City Council is gone to New Orleans No meetings this week with so many members off to a League of Cities confab...
Posted November 13, 2007 01:03 AM
Gus Hawkins was elected to the California legislature in 1934 [editor's note: !] and almost three decades later he became the first African American from...
Posted November 12, 2007 04:12 PM
Shav Glick covered auto racing for the L.A. Times for 37 years, until he was 85 years old, and earned legend status in the sport....
Posted October 21, 2007 11:21 PM
Nice post by Deanne Stillman at Native Intelligence on the passing of Tawn Mastrey, once "the voice of heavy metal" in Los Angeles on the...
Posted October 8, 2007 01:17 AM
L.A. broadcasting fixture Gary Franklin died at 79, at home in Chatsworth. He first became known as a street reporter on KFWB, ending his reports...
Posted October 4, 2007 08:56 AM
Lauritzen died today of a brain tumor, according to the Board of Education and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He lost his reelection campaign for the board...
Posted October 1, 2007 10:00 PM
The Oscar-winning actress and former Mrs. Ronald Reagan (when he was a SAG Democrat) never let her true age be pinned down. Katie Harris reports...
Posted September 10, 2007 10:58 AM
Michael Deaver worked for Ronald Reagan in the governor's office and in the White House and was known both as a clever image shaper and...
Posted August 19, 2007 08:07 PM
Ed Padgett, the blogging pressman at the Times' Olympic plant downtown, posted this morning that a coroner had just delivered the awful news that his...
Posted August 8, 2007 10:37 PM
KTLA's Prime News team remembered and praised their late anchor and managing editor Hal Fishman for the first half of the broadcast tonight. When they...
Posted August 7, 2007 11:00 PM
The face of KTLA news died this morning at home, the station announced. Fishman was 75 and had suffered from colon and liver cancer and...
Posted August 7, 2007 08:12 AM
Jacob Adams, the man thought to have been mauled to death by dogs at the Brentwood home of Ving Rhames, is listed as the screenwriter...
Posted August 4, 2007 06:31 PM
The New York Police Department confirmed this afternoon that the body found by a New Jersey fisherman last month was that of missing artist Jeremy...
Posted July 31, 2007 02:44 PM
Editor and writer Glenn O'Brien pens a final entry at The Wit of the Staircase, adding photographs of Duncan and Jeremy Blake and some Steely...
Posted July 30, 2007 12:52 PM
Bergman, one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died on the Swedish island of Faro. Nine Oscar nominations, but no statue. NYT obituary,...
Posted July 30, 2007 07:34 AM
This has been a bad day for the Los Angeles Police Department. Detective George "Mike" Selleh of the Mission station was killed about 3:30 am...
Posted July 29, 2007 10:26 PM
Nice personal piece on Wen Roberts, the sports photographer who died this week, by David Davis at SoCal Sports Observed. Roberts was probably the photographer...
Posted July 28, 2007 11:40 PM
Sherman Torgan's son posts on the theater's website that programming is cancelled until further notice: Sherman was my father and my best friend, and his...
Posted July 25, 2007 12:57 PM
A medical examiner in New York told perfumer Anya McCoy that the autopsy results will be known in about six weeks. McCoy says that Jeremy...
Posted July 20, 2007 02:49 PM
Beckhams hit L.A., David Zahniser's first Times byline and more — just click below for the Morning Buzz....
Posted July 13, 2007 09:10 AM
While researching his forthcoming biography of the late California political leader Jess Unruh, Bill Boyarsky delved into the story of how reporter Paul Weeks covered...
Posted July 12, 2007 03:31 PM
The actor whose familiar face graced these pages last year died Monday night at home in Brentwood. He was 102 years old. In January 2006,...
Posted July 10, 2007 06:08 PM
Geoff Kelly edited at the Daily News and Times and most recently was on the desk at the International Herald Tribune in Hong Kong. He...
Posted July 2, 2007 04:46 PM
The founder of Langer's Deli died Sunday in Agoura from complications of being 94 years old. He is survived by his son Norm Langer, daughter...
Posted June 25, 2007 02:30 PM
Anderson Jones, a freelance film critic who formerly reviewed for E! Online and made appearances on the "E! True Hollywood Story," died after suffering a...
Posted June 23, 2007 12:22 PM
San Jose Mecury News veteran Richard Ramirez was found dead at his home in Livermore. Ramirez began at the paper as an intern in 1984...
Posted June 21, 2007 08:55 AM
Anzack's family in Torrance was notified by the Army that his body had been found floating in the Euphrates river near Baghdad. The 20-year-old was...
Posted May 23, 2007 11:26 PM
Retired L.A. Times Metropolitan Editor Dave Rosenzweig died last night after battling cancer. A longtime investigative reporter and editor, Rosenzweig most recently had covered the...
Posted May 3, 2007 12:28 PM
Publicist and friend Warren Cowan made the announcement that Jack Valenti, the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, died this afternoon....
Posted April 26, 2007 03:49 PM
The author and journalist was involved in a three-car crash this morning near the Dumbarton Bridge in San Mateo County, according to AP stories out...
Posted April 23, 2007 04:00 PM
Howard Larman and his wife Roz started their folk music show in 1970. Folkscene may be the oldest program on Los Angeles radio. Howard passed...
Posted April 23, 2007 03:07 PM
The race-track fixture handicapped most recently for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and other LA News Group papers. He had planned to retire yesterday, at the...
Posted April 23, 2007 08:30 AM
Last week the staff of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald put out the word that she would take a leave of absence to recuperate from an unstated...
Posted April 22, 2007 03:28 PM
New LAUSD Supt. Supt. David L. Brewer has discovered what most of us knew — that things in his district are seriously awry. He...
Posted April 20, 2007 04:37 PM
Tony Tranfa, web editor and jazz critic of the Daily Breeze, died today after collapsing in a hallway at Torrance Memorial, where he was admitted...
Posted April 18, 2007 05:45 PM
Kurt Vonnegut died tonight in Manhattan, several weeks after suffering brain injuries in a fall. His wife, photographer Jill Krementz, confirmed the news for the...
Posted April 11, 2007 10:14 PM
Ariel Hanrath-Clark died with his father, producer Bob Clark, in last week's head-on crash with an unlicensed, undocumented suspected drunk driver on Pacific Coast Highway...
Posted April 9, 2007 08:25 AM
Bit of new formatting in today's Buzz. Check it out after the jump......
Posted April 2, 2007 07:55 AM
Petersen was a giant figure in Southern California car culture and created a large magazine and book empire, Petersen Publishing. He grew up around his...
Posted March 24, 2007 09:42 AM
There will be a public funeral for Cathy Seipp at 10 am on Friday at Mt. Sinai Hollywood Hills on Forest Lawn Drive. Denise Hamilton...
Posted March 21, 2007 07:59 PM
Cathy Seipp's public battle with lung cancer ended at 2:05 this afternoon. She was surrounded by family members and friends when she died at Cedars-Sinai....
Posted March 21, 2007 04:03 PM
First cut on Saturday afternoon...plus Sunday updates at the bottom. Richard Alarcon resigned from the Assembly in time to allow the special election to fill...
Posted March 17, 2007 04:30 PM
Mosey in for a look by clicking below......
Posted March 16, 2007 08:19 AM
Edgar Baitzel died Sunday of cancer. He joined LA Opera in 2001 and became Chief Operating Officer in February 2006. Placido Domingo, the opera company's...
Posted March 12, 2007 01:36 PM
Standup comedian Richard Jeni was found gravely injured from a gunshot wound Saturday morning inside his West Hollywood apartment. He died soon after at the...
Posted March 11, 2007 08:06 PM
Jim Beardsley, a local historian who is the archivist at Marymount High School, stopped by the old Marineland site on Palos Verdes Peninsula and...
Posted March 11, 2007 12:02 PM
Latest L.A. city election results are here. In early results, Richard Alarcon was winning his race to rejoin the City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa was...
Posted March 7, 2007 12:32 AM
Would you believe it's election day again? Los Angeles and some surrounding cities will vote. Go ahead, try it for a change — in L.A....
Posted March 6, 2007 12:35 AM
Dennis Johnson grew up in Compton and played basketball for Pepperdine before winning NBA championships with the Seattle Supersonics and Boston Celtics. He collapsed today...
Posted February 22, 2007 02:22 PM
Good day of items, including a new concept at county jail — those who are sentenced to 90 days have to stay more than a...
Posted February 6, 2007 02:12 AM
The Texas-based political humorist and syndicated columnist died Wednesday in Austin after a long and sometimes public battle with cancer. Ivins' death was announced by...
Posted February 1, 2007 02:25 AM
Sidney Sheldon had won a screenwriting Oscar (The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer), a Tony ("Redhead") and created TV sitcoms ("I Dream of Jeannie" and "Patty...
Posted January 30, 2007 11:09 PM
Bob Carroll Jr. worked with writing partner Madelyn Pugh Davis for more than 60 years, including on all the television series that Lucille Ball starred...
Posted January 30, 2007 02:48 AM
Later in life, Daniel Finegood became a husband, father, art lover and longtime member of the board of the Oakwood School. But on January 1,...
Posted January 25, 2007 02:35 AM
The best-selling mystery author from Laguna Beach died yesterday in Cleveland while awaiting a liver transplant. She had received two livers in 2005 and spent...
Posted January 22, 2007 10:56 AM
Doherty (next to Mama Cass at this 1966 performance in L.A.) was one quarter of the 1960s hitmakers the Mamas and Papas. His death today...
Posted January 19, 2007 03:59 PM
Syndicated columnist Art Buchwald, who died last night, taped his own "obituary video" for the New York Times. It's up on the front page of...
Posted January 18, 2007 10:41 AM
Twice Updated: Eli Broad and Ron Burkle and the Chandlers are readying competing bids for all or part of the Tribune, Jim Rainey reports in...
Posted January 17, 2007 05:56 PM
Government, schools, most banks and the U.S. Postal Service are closed for the Martin Luther King holiday. News, of course, continues. A scaled back but...
Posted January 15, 2007 02:27 AM
Let's see — some more details on City Hall's alleged Red Light Bandits, reports from the jam-packed Dowie-Stodder sentencing hearing, a KNX anchor returns and...
Posted January 9, 2007 01:18 AM
Can't remember the last time we posted so much on the weekend, including Mark Lacter's exclusive memo from LAT publisher David Hiller on rethinking the...
Posted January 8, 2007 01:16 AM
Mayor Villaraigosa picks up another tribute from People en espańol, a strange phone call to Channel 2 about Jim Lampley's arrest, Pellicano's day in court...
Posted January 5, 2007 01:23 AM
Obituaries come in three varieties on LA Observed. Either the death is big news with a SoCal connection, the deceased is prominent in the fields...
Posted December 30, 2006 07:02 PM
Ron Fineman lost his battle with colon cancer today. The founder of the television news website Ron Fineman's On the Record was taken off his...
Posted December 30, 2006 06:52 PM
Former president Gerald Ford died today, Betty Ford announced. No location was given, but the Fords were residing in Rancho Mirage on the desert near...
Posted December 26, 2006 10:58 PM
James Brown died early Christmas Day in Atlanta after being admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business made one...
Posted December 25, 2006 01:25 AM
Warner Bros sends word that animation legend Joseph Barbera died today at home in Studio City. He and partner William Hanna, who died in 2001,...
Posted December 18, 2006 05:58 PM
The founder of Atlantic Records died today in New York. Ertegun fell at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones and later slipped into...
Posted December 14, 2006 04:25 PM
Stromme died yesterday of cancer at the age of 59. She wrote the Echo Park novel Joe's Word and the Underground Gardener column for the...
Posted December 8, 2006 02:26 PM
The talker item around here yesterday was definitely 99-tuba salute, my post on Hollywood studio musician Tommy Johnson from Bill Booth's story in the Washington...
Posted December 6, 2006 01:48 AM
Lippin had co-managed Brian Wilson and had been a PR rep for, among others, Prince, Eric Clapton and Stephen Stills. The Lippin Group, where she...
Posted December 4, 2006 01:33 PM
Bebe Moore Campbell, a best-selling novelist "known for her empathetic treatment of the difficult, intertwined and occasionally surprising relationship between the races," has died at...
Posted November 27, 2006 06:21 PM
The director died last night in an undisclosed Los Angeles hospital. His production company hasn't yet released the cause of death. Altman directed critical favorites...
Posted November 21, 2006 11:15 AM
Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley died today of complications from leukemia. The first black White House correspondent for CBS News, he reported on the...
Posted November 9, 2006 11:36 AM
Colen reviewed restaurants for Los Angeles magazine for 21 years during the era when the city and figures like Wolfgang Puck emerged as culinary forces....
Posted November 9, 2006 11:02 AM
Friday's Times carries the obit on the paper's long-time and respected classical music reviewer, Daniel Cariaga, who died on Wednesday at age 71. His life...
Posted November 3, 2006 12:39 AM
The three-year veteran was killed Sunday morning during a routine traffic accident investigation at Riverside Drive and Hyperion Avenue. He was in the street when...
Posted October 23, 2006 01:47 AM
Ralph Story was a big deal on local television in the 1960s and 70s. He was the features reporter for "The Big News" on Channel...
Posted September 26, 2006 10:29 PM
John Meroney writes at the National Review Online that Brewer, who died Saturday, "never ran a movie studio or directed a picture, [but] for about...
Posted September 20, 2006 02:51 AM
The California Clean Money Campaign emailed supporters last night that co-founder and chairman Ted Williams died yesterday morning.. Funeral services will be Thursday at Mt....
Posted September 19, 2006 07:38 AM
The Wave reports that the civil rights attorney and former police commissioner died last night when her car plummeted down a slope near her home...
Posted September 11, 2006 03:08 PM
Hollywood lost another stalwart today. Actor Glenn Ford was found dead by paramedics called to his Beverly Hills home about 4 pm. Ford lived with...
Posted August 30, 2006 09:47 PM
Raphael died in her sleep last Saturday in a hospice in Palm Desert, following what Todd Everett calls "a long and excruciating illness." She was...
Posted August 18, 2006 10:59 AM
The Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County is the largest Vietnamese daily newspaper in the nation. Do started the paper in his Garden Grove...
Posted August 18, 2006 07:15 AM
The Los Angeles Daily Journal columnist died over the weekend after an eight-year battle with prostate cancer. He had previously worked as a feature writer...
Posted August 7, 2006 10:56 AM
An eagle-eyed (female) reader with a sense of Los Angeles history spotted a paid obit in the Times for Big John Mazmanian, a legend of...
Posted July 26, 2006 10:11 PM
Buttons began in burlesque, had his own TV show in the early 1950s and won a supporting actor Academy Award for the 1957 film Sayonara,...
Posted July 13, 2006 01:17 PM
Legendary television producer Aaron Spelling died this evening, five days after suffering a stroke. His wife Candy and son Randy were at his side, according...
Posted June 23, 2006 09:39 PM
Two items: Josiah Beeman, the former aide to San Francisco politicians and Ambassador to New Zealand and Western Samoa for President Clinton, died at age...
Posted June 23, 2006 03:39 PM
The Getty looks like it's ready to give back some disputed art to make the museum's Italian problem go away. Plus Antonio Villaraigosa, Jerry Perenchio...
Posted June 20, 2006 02:34 AM
Paul Gleason became an actor after watching Splendor in the Grass with Jack Kerouac. Sixty-some films later, plus Broadway and roles on "Seinfeld," "Friends" and...
Posted May 29, 2006 10:29 PM
Nice LAT obituary today on the entrepreneur who painted the giant Felix Chevrolet sign downtown and who also came up with the KFC bucket and...
Posted May 26, 2006 02:23 AM
From BillboardBiz.com via the Hollywood Reporter: One of the most colorful careers in music came to a close today as pioneering booking agent Ian Copeland...
Posted May 24, 2006 02:58 PM
The founder, editor and publisher of The Argonaut—a useful and newsy community weekly centered in Marina del Rey—died yesterday at age 68. He had suffered...
Posted May 18, 2006 03:28 PM
Does Anthony Pellicano want to bump off his former crony Alexander Proctor? The feds say yes. Dowie loses a round in court (but not that...
Posted May 9, 2006 01:28 AM
Watching Antonio squirm—Dowie and Stodder too, and Dodgers fans, and the art experts at Cal State Northridge who OK'd some suspect Chinese antiquities. Plus a...
Posted May 4, 2006 01:51 AM
Antonio Villaraigosa's dapperness and his politics are in the news, as are Rocky Delgadillo's ambition, Michaela Pereira's sensitivity, Vanity Fair's accuracy and Fleishman-Hillard's billing practices....
Posted April 28, 2006 08:58 AM
Former LAPD chief Ed Davis died tonight in San Luis Obispo after suffering a bout of pneumonia. He took over the department in 1969 when...
Posted April 22, 2006 09:22 PM
Media reaction to the Hiltzik blog disclosure, a city budget with money for more cops, some awards, some obits and General Zinni is in town....
Posted April 20, 2006 11:50 PM
Antonio plans to impose a trash fee as the build-up to The Big Speech continues...Monique Moret names names in the Fleishman-Hillard trial: recognizable names...plus racism...
Posted April 12, 2006 01:56 AM
Caspar Weinberger, the former California legislator who served in the Cabinet for Presidents Nixon and Reagan, died at age 88. As Secretary of Defense for...
Posted March 28, 2006 10:01 AM
There were probably some good stories swapped tonight wherever politicos and journalists gather from Sacramento to Washington. Lyn Nofziger, the Copley reporter who became Ronald...
Posted March 27, 2006 11:56 PM
♦ Saturday's downtown protest march against the Sensenbrenner bill to criminalize giving aid or jobs to illegal immigrants was really big. The LAPD, usually conservative on...
Posted March 25, 2006 11:01 PM
City News Service is reporting that Sam Chu Lin, a former CBS News correspondent who reported most recently for Fox 11, died Sunday in Burbank....
Posted March 6, 2006 10:26 PM
No obvious Los Angeles angle that I can think of, other than the delight that he gave to local baseball fans. Hall of Famer Kirby...
Posted March 6, 2006 06:35 PM
What is it the last couple of days? Add actor Dennis Weaver to the list of newly passed. Also, John Rabe did a piece today...
Posted February 27, 2006 01:34 PM
The last family publisher of the Los Angeles Times died this morning at home in Ojai at age 78. Otis Chandler had suffered from a...
Posted February 27, 2006 06:53 AM
Author Steven Barnes is reporting on his blog (picked up by Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow calls the news confirmed) that Octavia Butler has died...
Posted February 26, 2006 04:53 PM
Eagle-eyed reader Doug Thomson spotted the paid obituary in Saturday's Los Angeles Times for Edward G. Nalbandian, better known as Eddie in TV commercials for...
Posted February 25, 2006 11:54 PM
The longtime comic actor, who lived here in West Los Angeles, died of lung cancer yesterday at UCLA. Knotts was best known as Deputy Barney...
Posted February 25, 2006 06:33 PM
Kyle Ballard was jogging with other Pasadena PD officers at the Rose Bowl Friday morning when he collapsed. The Pasadena Weekly has posted a web...
Posted February 24, 2006 06:07 PM
I had not heard of Willie Grace Campbell until Karen Wada profiled her in Los Angeles Magazine in 2004, writing that she "has changed American...
Posted February 10, 2006 12:26 AM
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein succumbed to cancer today in New York. "The Heidi Chronicles" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony for best play...
Posted January 30, 2006 11:00 AM
Some of you might remember last month's item about Peter Ladefoged inspiring the rare addition of an African sound—the labiodental flap—to the International Phonetic Alphabet....
Posted January 27, 2006 06:25 PM
Fayard Nicholas, the Tony Award winner and Kennedy Center honoree who was half of the groundbreaking Nicholas Brothers tap dance team, died Tuesday at home...
Posted January 25, 2006 11:10 PM
The actor and younger brother of Sean Penn was discovered about 4 pm in his Ocean Avenue condo. Police aren't making any suggestions of foul...
Posted January 24, 2006 10:06 PM
Larry Davis, one of the L.A. Times' top photographers until he left on a buyout in 1995, killed himself in Seattle yesterday. His wife had...
Posted January 20, 2006 11:37 PM
Rawls died of cancer this morning at Cedars, the LAT says. He had left Fremont Place for Scottsdale, Ariz in 2003. From the early Times...
Posted January 6, 2006 09:35 AM
The Trojans' baseball coach for forty-five years died today in Glendale from complications of a stroke. Born Raoul Martial Dedeaux, he coached at least sixty...
Posted January 5, 2006 07:46 PM
The LAT was right on top of this local obituary. Saxophone-playing, small-government maverick Ernani Bernardi died yesterday. He served eight terms from his beloved Van...
Posted January 5, 2006 03:52 PM
Judging by my email today, the L.A. Times' failure to get together an obit on Frank Wilkinson (while the New York Times did recognize his...
Posted January 4, 2006 10:05 PM
Veteran actor John Spencer died today of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital. He plays Leo McGarry, the former White House chief of...
Posted December 16, 2005 04:15 PM
Bill Robertson, the retired L.A. County Federation of Labor chief, was 89 and suffered from Alzheimer's: "...onetime bartender and bouncer who rose to become a...
Posted December 10, 2005 02:07 PM
Services for former Los Angeles city councilman Marvin Braude will be held Monday at 11 am at University Synagogue on Sunset. Braude represented the Westside...
Posted December 8, 2005 05:15 PM
Gawker posts this regarding the weekend death of Brenda You, a freelance writer who had the unusual profile of having been a Playboy model, a...
Posted November 14, 2005 09:40 PM
The "father of modern management" was a professor at Claremont Graduate University from 1971 to 2003. From the L.A. Times obituary: Drucker was called "the...
Posted November 11, 2005 05:27 PM
Dennis B. Underwood, the CEO and general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California since April, passed away at age 60 after battling...
Posted November 3, 2005 12:32 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa scooped the local media with a statement on the passing of former councilman and congressman Edward Roybal. He was 89 and is the...
Posted October 25, 2005 01:14 PM
Rosa Parks died today at home in Detroit at age 92. In Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, the granddaughter of slaves refused to give up her...
Posted October 24, 2005 08:56 PM
Kennedy was a producer and writer for KCBS and KCET and started the program "Life & Times" at the latter station. He died Oct. 5...
Posted October 13, 2005 02:42 AM
Don Adams, Agent 86 on the "Get Smart" TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in 1965, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai. He was...
Posted September 26, 2005 03:32 PM
Gail Diane Cox used to be the Los Angeles bureau chief for the National Law Journal. She also had worked for KPFK, and was living...
Posted September 7, 2005 01:47 AM
Shanghai-born Esther Wong began booking punk and new wave bands into her Polynesian-themed Chinatown club in 1978, hoping to increase the meager crowds. It worked....
Posted August 17, 2005 08:12 PM
Erwin Baker used to be the Times' City Council reporter and by virtue of longevity was crowned the "dean of City Hall reporters" before that...
Posted August 9, 2005 08:24 PM
David Shaw won the Pulitzer prize for his media reporting in the L.A. Times. He died tonight of complications from a brain tumor that was...
Posted August 1, 2005 09:47 PM
The only screenwriter to receive an honorary Oscar died on Saturday at age 89. The news didn't get out until today. The Writers Guild website's...
Posted July 5, 2005 10:26 PM
The office of state Assemblyman Mike Gordon announced that he died today from the brain tumor that was diagnosed in February, shortly after he took...
Posted June 25, 2005 01:11 PM
Obits are praising the accomplishments of Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1978-84. "We have lost one of...
Posted June 16, 2005 01:16 AM
O'Leary, a former nun, ran the political consulting firm O'Leary and Associates in Los Angeles and served twelve years on the Democratic National Committee. She...
Posted June 6, 2005 12:36 AM
Organized labor's most influential Los Angeles leader apparently suffered a fatal heart attack late Friday. Contreras suffered from type 2 diabetes; most media sources put...
Posted May 7, 2005 01:08 AM
Some of you might remember last year's exchanges in the old comments section here about Michel Thomas. He was the language teacher to the stars...
Posted January 11, 2005 10:23 PM
From Rolling Stone's website this afternoon: Rock & roll manager and writer Danny Sugerman, best known as the manager of the Doors and the co-author...
Posted January 6, 2005 03:39 PM
Sontag died today [Tuesday] of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book...
Posted December 28, 2004 12:16 PM
The editor-in-chief in 1989 when the Herald Examiner folded died this week of cancer at age 76. His career included stints as managing editor of...
Posted December 10, 2004 03:29 PM
The Times' society editor for 14 years (1971-1985) chronicled the days when the Chandler family reigned over Hancock Park and the prominent names in Los...
Posted December 3, 2004 09:20 AM
The dance pioneer suffered a stroke Tuesday and died in a Pasadena nursing facility yesterday. Born here, she formed her famous dance company in 1966....
Posted July 17, 2004 10:09 AM
The founder of Gold's Gym, an L.A. institution of sorts since its founding in Venice in 1965, died over the weekend. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked...
Posted July 13, 2004 01:22 AM
My favorite obituaries are of people I never heard of but wished I had. Claudia Luther did a nice job in the Times today with...
Posted May 22, 2004 12:01 PM
Will Fowler was the first reporter on the scene of the Black Dahlia murder and kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer at...
Posted April 15, 2004 10:59 AM
Architect Pierre Koenig died Sunday at his home in Brentwood. His Case Study houses #21 and #22 helped put Koenig among the elite modernist architects...
Posted April 6, 2004 12:25 PM
The former editor and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai after complications from intestinal surgery, the paper reports today. She had...
Posted March 9, 2004 11:55 AM
Associate Editor Frank del Olmo suffered an apparent heart attack in the L.A. Times offices this morning and has died. Frank had been a member...
Posted February 19, 2004 02:00 PM
New: L.A. Times obituary by Bob Drogin Mark Fineman, one of the L.A. Times staff writers in Iraq, died this morning of an apparent heart...
Posted September 23, 2003 11:15 AM
The Fairfax High dropout narrated Los Angeles in his music. He revealed last year that he had inoperable lung cancer, then completed a new album,...
Posted September 8, 2003 12:12 PM
Freddie Blassie entertained Los Angeles as the most hated villain of local "professional" wrestling in the 1950s and 60s, when wrestling and roller derby were...
Posted June 4, 2003 08:12 AM
Robinson had been the managing editor at KCBS-TV Channel 2 in the early 1990s and had also worked at KTTV/FOX-TV Channel 11. He won eight...
Posted May 31, 2003 10:26 AM
© 2003-2008 • About LA Observed • Contact the editor
| Boy, talk about your sign of the times. The Bloomingdale's by-mail catalog is being discontinued next year in favor of...
| The Bev Hills billionaire wants to boost his stake in the car company from 4.7 percent to 5.5 percent. That...
| Those who say we in LA don't read have obviously never parallel parked on our streets, where we not only read, but debate the subtext and hidden meanings intended by the author.
| Pretty sure I was sitting behind Andrew and Brian Kamenetzky this afternoon, but not positive.
| The annual event could make its way to the Nokia Theatre in 2009
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