Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
The restaurant critic, cultural anthropologist and voice of Los Angeles found out this month that he had pancreatic cancer.
Archive: Obituaries
The restaurant critic, cultural anthropologist and voice of Los Angeles found out this month that he had pancreatic cancer.
"The world stood still today for my sweet husband," his wife posted after a solemn procession Sunday drew crowds along several SoCal freeways. "He is home."
Endless Summer changed the image of surfers and surfing culture in the 1960s and made Brown a legend on the beach.
Daily News photographer takes to the streets. Visiting critic blinded by the light. Media notes and obits. More PST:LA/LA. Selected tweets.
On the ground in Mexico and Puerto Rico, another LA Times exit, media obits and selected tweets.
Friedman was a stalwart of the Los Angeles Times photo staff for more than 30 years.
Wong was based in Rancho Park and was training at his new station downtown when he fell from a ladder and died.
"Before John Severson, there was really no surf art, no surf magazines, no real surf films, no surfwear industry, no pro surfing, no Surfrider Foundation, no surf culture as we know it."
Alvear started at KNBC and became NBC's first Latina news producer when she led Latin America coverage.
We must have played "Angel Baby" a million times since the only hit from Rosie and the Originals came out in 1961, Art Laboe posts on Facebook.
Osborne's TV credits begin in 1954, but in 1977 he took up writing for the Hollywood Reporter and became the genial first host of TCM movies.
The Los Angeles entertainment journalist and author of "Sunset Boulevard: Cruising The Heart of Los Angeles” has died of cancer.
"A giant of American film criticism," Kenneth Turan says of Schickel, the longtime Time critic, author and documentary maker.
Also: Exits from the LA Times, Google warns journalists, some Trump-inspired news jobs and more.
The top contender for the title of preeminent observer of our state "chronicled the history of California as no one else," Gov. Jerry Brown said.
As Lynne Seemayer, she created an indelible part of LA street art lore and became something of a legend.
Michael Justice, who shot for the Wall Street Journal, Daily Breeze and LA Herald Examiner, was on assignment for the port in San Pedro.
Wong's artwork inspired "Bambi." He contributed to other films and was also known for his beach kites.
It's been awhile since there was an editor in charge of covering prominent deaths. He doesn't get any assigned writers.
Ifill died of cancer complications. Co-anchor Judy Woodruff gave viewers the news on "PBS News Hour," where Ifill was managing editor.
Cohen's official Facebook page announced his passing without details.
Author, activist and former California state assemblyman and senator Tom Hayden has died in Santa Monica after a lengthy illness.
Snotty Scotty and the Hankies led every single version of the Occasional Pasadena Doh Dah Parade.
Owen was shot and killed answering a home burglary call in Lancaster.
Edelman represented the Westside and the Fairfax area for 29 years and led the fight for children's services, AIDS treatment, mental health services and the arts.
From his home on Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood, where he and his wife Betty hosted countless salons and strategy meetings, Stanley Sheinbaum played a key role in LA and world events.
Joe Hicks, the co-founder of Community Advocates Inc. and a long-time media commentator on race and columnist in Los Angeles, died Sunday.
Long worked on "The Big News" at KNXT and was VP and news director at NBC 4.
Halpert reported for all three network stations in LA and hosted "KNBC News Conference."
The French-born chef built a national empire after his two hit Los Angeles eateries.
Steve Lopez has written a lovely column on his friend, the Skid Row organizer and housing advocate and co-founder of the LAMP Community.
Durslag wrote about sports for the Hearst newspapers in Los Angeles from the time he was a freshman at USC in 1939 until the HerEx closed in 1989.
See was "the defining voice for a certain kind of California experience in the mid-’70s and 1980s."
Coming, goings, awards and Donald Trump. Plus that LAT photographer pleads no contest and gets community service.
Cunningham created the genre of street fashion photography and was featured in a 2010 documentary.
Lamb was "the consummate newspaperman in the glory days of the profession," his LAT obit begins.
Muhammad Ali, who died today at age 74, had a lot of connections to Los Angeles.
900 or so friends gathered Sunday night at the Wilshire Ebell.
KPCC posted a little while ago that Julian, the station's longtime morning host, has died of brain cancer.
The original Filthy McNasty's occupied the Sunset Strip spot now the Viper Room. He also ran FM Station in the Valley.
"Maybe the greatest combination country singer and songwriter of his generation," Robert Hilburn said today.
Hennessy spent 27 years as the staff columnist at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and another six years writing occasional pieces.
The longtime Westside councilman and television host entered hospice care last month.
Rogers grew up in the Hollywood PR business and launched his own firm, The Rogers Group, in 1978.
O'Donnell, 47, pushed Gov. Brown to sign California's new right-to-die act, which won't take effect until later this year.
Not many top bands with more certifiable Los Angeles roots than the Eagles, who met Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour, became her band and with her blessing went out and dominated the 1970s.
Bowie's social media accounts posted tonight that the musician and actor has died after an 18-month fight with cancer.
Michael Hamilburg was the book agent for Jim Morrison, Jackie Robinson, Vincent Bugliosi and many other writers — as well as a number of Los Angeles journalists through the years....
His career included work with David Alfaro Siqueiros, illustrating for "Sleeping Beauty" and "Fantastic Voyage," and murals for Disneyland and other Disney parks.
Flick survived the attack on journalists covering Jonestown that killed Rep. Leo Ryan in 1978 and helped to start "Entertainment Tonight."
The father of City Attorney Mike Feuer died today. His talks with students at Castle Heights Elementary School were featured in a Steve Lopez column this year.
"If Los Angeles had another 100 Leonard Shapiros we'd be in a lot better shape than we are today," his wife wrote in a 1984 letter to the editor.
Weiland, the singer with Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, has died at age 48. He was a paste-up guy at the LA Daily Journal in the early 1990s.
Galvez was a five-year veteran of the Downey Police Department from Whittier. Three suspects have been arrested.
Sloan, 70, died Monday night. 'For those who grew up in Southern California in the golden glow of the mid-'60s," Joel Bellman writes, "he produced the soundtrack of our lives."
The creator of the Batmobile and many other "kustom" cars for Hollywood was first a legend in the LA car culture.
Hoffenblum was a Republican strategist who created the nonpartisan and respected California Target Book.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck credits Milner's Pete Malloy with inspiring him to join the force.
"One of the great news producers of all time, anywhere," says Bob Tarlau on Facebook.
Sacks announced in a February Op-ed piece that he had spreading cancer and was detaching from big world concerns like the Middle East and global warming. "My generation is on the way out…"
Cheuse was injured in a crash near Santa Cruz two weeks ago.
Baker worked for the Times as a reporter and editor for 26 years. He also contributed to LA Observed in the site's early years.
Born to the first Korean couple to immigrate to Los Angeles, she was a Navy code breaker in World War II, an activist in LA and part of a popular postwar restaurant family in the San Fernando Valley.
Ring was the assistant who hid F. Scott Fitzgerald's drinking by dumping his empty gin bottles in Sepulveda Canyon in the months before he died.
The kicker for the Rams in the 1960s became the news director and president of KMEX and a co-founder of Univision.
He bought MGM three times, owned Las Vegas hotels and at times was the richest man in Los Angeles.
The editor who led the Times to 13 Pulitzers in the first five years of Tribune ownership, then left rather than begin to dismantle the paper with cuts, died in Lexington, Kentucky of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
After convicting Charles Manson and followers, Bugliosi wrote "Helter Skelter" and a number of other books.
The renowned photojournalist of topics as varied as Seattle runaways, Bombay prostitutes, high school proms, twins and film sets died on Monday in New York.
Meara, the actress and comedian, died in Manhattan. Nash, the mathematician portrayed in "A Beautiful Mind," was killed with his wife Alicia in a New Jersey taxi crash.
Burden's "Urban Light" outside LACMA has become one of the most admired and photographed works of art in Los Angeles.
The Survey Monkey chief executive who reportedly died outside the U.S. while on vacation with his wife -- no details have been released -- was a pioneer in bringing digital music to the Internet.
Bill Gardner soared with his on-air set devoted to the late Ben E. King on Saturday afternoon on KPFK.
Ely co-founded the Portland garage band the Kingsmen and was the lead singer on their 1963 cover of "Louie Louie." Written by Angeleno Richard Berry, "LL" may be the most recorded rock song ever.
Corliss wrote about film for Time for 35 years, becoming "perhaps the magazine’s most quoted writer of all time."
"Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" says the sign placed on the road into Vegas from LA in 1959. "A luminous diamond stretched like Silly Putty, each letter of 'Welcome' encircled by silver dollars."
The lead blogger for many years at Mayor Sam's Sister City died Wednesday after a visit to the dentist.
"When a Man Loves a Woman" "raised the bar for soul balladeering for all time," the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wrote. Sledge died today in Baton Rouge.
Laventhol created the Washington Post Style section and came to the Times through Newsday.
If you remember the names Ralphie Valladares and Shirley Hardman, this post is for you. Whoa, Nellie!
Stan Freberg had one of those Los Angeles careers. "The first great genius of American musical satire," says Harry Shearer.
Vin Scully had to announce another death in his Dodger family on Sunday, the day before the season opens at Dodger Stadium.
Fischbeck was Channel 7's weatherman for nearly 20 years in the 1970s and 80s.
McDonnell died today at Good Samaritan after a brief illness. He "worked at almost every sports outlet on the local radio dial," LA Radio's Don Barrett said.
McIlvain was the Troubleshooter on Channel 2 news in Los Angeles for many years. He died Monday.
Simon donated his fortune from "The Simpsons" to children, animals and other causes.
"Pipeline" became "one of Southern California's most recognizable musical exports — an instrumental anthem to riding the waves and living the life..."
The actor known for playing Star Trek's Mr. Spock died of smoking at his home in Bel Air this morning.
Graham reported the Billionaire Boys Club stories in the 1980s and wrote for "NYPD Blue" and other TV shows.
Fairchild's fans from 1960s TV, "Head" and "Up in Smoke" found her again dancing on YouTube. She recovered from a bout of homelessness on Skid Row.
Prouser started with Reuters here on the first day of the Rodney King riots and shot close to 3,000 Hollywood red carpets before he was done.
Best known for "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," Owens was an LA radio fixture first. "One of the most famous broadcasters in Los Angeles radio history," says LA Radio's Don Barrett.
KTLA just announced that Stan Chambers died this morning at his home in Holmby Hills. He did 22,000 stories in 63 years at Channel 5. Obits and tributes inside.
The award-winning former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times died Sunday night at home in the Hollywood Hills. Her husband, UC Irvine law professor Henry Weinstein, says that services are pending.
Colleagues and friends react to the passing of the Daily News' longtime presence at City Hall.
The Daily News announced this afternoon that Orlov died of diabetes complications. Mayor Garcetti: "City Hall is in mourning."
The Bard of LA, as he was called, had a long career at the Los Angeles Times and had also written columns for the Topanga Messenger, the Daily News and AARP — plus books and TV episodes.
Before moving on to Hollywood, Kaltman was a press deputy to Jim Hahn and Wendy Greuel in City Hall.
Serros is the author of "Chicana Falsa," "How to be a Chicana Role Model" and "Honey Blonde Chica," among other works.
Scott was a popular ESPN anchor. Colleagues are remembering him in emotional on-air tributes.
Rainer won her second Academy Award at 28 then left 1930s Hollywood in a dispute with Louis B. Mayer. Her quick rise and fall are Hollywood legend.
LACMA's VP in charge of getting the Levitated Mass boulder in place. A noted liberal rabbi. A former LA City Council member.
The rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino for nearly 45 years was "regarded as the most influential synagogue leader of his generation." "The John Wooden of rabbis," says Zev Yaroslavsky.
Garth, a small, pugnacious political consultant, always said that in a campaign Bugs Bunny beats Daffy Duck -- the smooth unruffled character beats the berserk fool.
Another of LA's chain restaurant pioneers passes away. He 'popularized the concept of the sit-down Mexican chain.'
The beloved Los Angeles puppeteer died today of natural causes, his representatives announced. In lieu of flowers, donations are urged to support the Bob Baker Marionette Theater.
The director of "The Graduate" and so much more has won an Oscar, an Emmy, Tonys and a Grammy.
Look inside and turn up the sound: As I walk this land of broken dreams...
I have visions of many things.
Charles Champlin wore a lot of hats on the Los Angeles arts and entertainment journalism scene: LA Times arts editor, film critic, book critic, columnist, author, host of TV programs and more.
Dorian Paskowitz was a Stanford-trained doctor who raised nine children on the beach in Orange County, surfed the world and even tried to make peace on the Gaza Strip. He "lived the ultimate surfing life."
Tributes to the Los Angeles printmaker and artist Richard Duardo are filling my social feeds. Duardo has been referred to as the "Warhol of the West" for his prints of pop-culture icons.
Mankiewicz died last week in Washington of heart failure. Among his many roles in public life, he announced the death of Robert F. Kennedy in the darkness of a Los Angeles morning.
Peña had a screen presence you remember in films like "Lone Star" and "La Bamba." She recently had been directing TV episodes, voicing for "The Incredibles" and "Justice League" cartoons, and had finished work on an action series for the El Rey Network.
Natividad Cano, the founder of Los Camperos de Nati Cano — probably the most famous mariachi band to be based in Los Angeles — died Friday at age 81.
Wilson, the jazz musician and arranger whose career spanned from 1930s swing to the present, died at home in Los Angeles today at age 96. He had come down with pneumonia two weeks ago.
Alcaraz was killed on his motorcycle in a traffic collision in Torrance. He was due to start work in West LA division on Sunday.
Statement from Melissa Rivers says "It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my mother, Joan Rivers….My mother’s greatest joy in life was to make people laugh."
The emeritus professor at Annenberg was a prolific author and had been a correspondent for the New York Times and Look, and a writer for the late Valley Times newspaper.
Sussman began her career as an office designer for Charles and Ray Eames. She created a distinctive graphic look for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Bacall, the New York model who became an overnight movie star at age 19 after appearing opposite Humphrey Bogart (then 44) in “To Have and Have Not,” died Tuesday of a stroke at her home in the Dakota building in Manhattan.
Marin County officials said the Oscar winner appeared to kill himself via asphyxia. “This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings,” his wife, Susan Schneider, said.
April Thompson, who died on Saturday, was the Manager of Stadium Services at Dodger Stadium. Some may remember her as an usher starting in the 1970s.
Marlow had a long career reporting or anchoring on KNBC, KCBS and KCET — 37 years in all, ending with the old "Life & Times” program on KCET.
A noted local runner as a teenager, Zamperini competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and during World War II survived 47 days adrift on a raft in the Pacific and years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He was working on a new book with David Rensin when he died and a film of "Unbroken" is due out in December.
Ressner began at the LA Weekly as a messenger, moved to the Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone and US Weekly, then was a Time magazine correspondent in Los Angeles for more than 10 years. He also wrote for Politico.
Mazursky died Monday of cardiac arrest while at Cedars-Sinai. Writer Adam Baer has posted a nice piece about "the day Paul Mazursky changed my life."
Babo Castillo is credited with teaching Fernando Valenzeula the screwball. Castillo pitched for the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series.
Gwynn, the most accomplished San Diego Padre ever, had cancer of the mouth he blamed on smokeless tobacco. He grew up in Long Beach and his son and brother both played for the Dodgers.
Casey Kasem was one of the marquee names on KRLA when that mattered in Los Angeles, and after 1970 was America's Mr. Top 40. He died in Washington state surrounded by his children.
Welch struck out Reggie Jackson in the World Series at age 21 and looked set for a great career. He had a pretty good run, especially for a guy who wrote a memoir about his alcoholism before he was 30.
Jim Hayes was a longtime reporter and editor who taught journalism at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and who served as a writing coach in several newsrooms, including at the Los Angeles Times.
Zimmer was the last of the Brooklyn Dodgers to have an on-field job in baseball. Vin Scully told Zim stories between pitches of the second inning of tonight's game at Dodger Stadium.
Allen was killed by a runaway truck on the same Beverly Hills street where officer Nick Lee also was killed by a truck. The city has ordered a halt to truck activity and put in radar to catch speeders.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced this morning's death of six-year veteran Roberto Sanchez, 32, of the Harbor station. He is the third officer to die while driving in recent weeks.
Great line (from 1959) about one benefit of his unusual name: "It’s kept me out of westerns. I can’t imagine a Hopalong Zimbalist.”
Officer Chris Cortijo of the Valley Traffic Division died today of injuries he suffered when his motorcycle was hit by a DUI suspect in Sun Valley on Saturday.
They don't make Hollywood careers like this any more. Rooney's IMDb credits span 1926 to 2014 (340 listings), plus two Oscars and four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Associated Press says that an Afghan police commander opened fire with an AK-47 Friday on two AP journalists, killing Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding veteran correspondent Kathy Gannon.
Alter opened the first surf shop in Dana Point in 1954 and became "the godfather of the surf industry." A memorial paddle out will be held in front of his family home in Laguna Beach.
Ruth Ryon created the LA Times' Hot Property feature. Lonnie White covered sports and had played football at USC, where he set the school's single-season record for kickoff return yardage.
Rebhorn's most recent high-profile part was as Frank Mathison, the father of CIA agent Carrie Mathison in "Homeland." He also prosecuted Seinfeld and friends in the final episode of that series.
Saturday obits include Hollywood voice artist Hal Douglas and production manager Abby Singer, whose name has become affixed to the penultimate shot of the day on Hollywood sets.
Bob Thomas began to cover Hollywood for the Associated Press in 1944, after fleeing the Fresno bureau. When he retired in 2010, Thomas held records for longest career as an entertainment reporter and most consecutive Academy Awards shows covered.
The Herald Examiner alumni on Facebook have posted the news that former city editor Larry Burrough died Monday in Washington state. He went to the Orange County Register and also was managing editor of the Denver Post.
Nicholas Choung Lee is the Hollywood division officer who was killed today in the collision of his patrol car with a truck in Beverly Hills. Chief Charlie Beck tweeted, "A man of greatness and selflessness. Nick was a great cop."
Robert Anthony "Tony" Gieske worked for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and spent 18 years at the Hollywood Reporter.
Let's stop for a minute to appreciate the comedy of Harold Ramis: "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day," "Animal House," "Ghostbusters," "Stripes" and more.
Bill Thomas was editor of the Los Angeles from 1971 to 1989, a time in which the paper's reputation grew nationally due largely to the expansion in coverage and ambition he led.
Caesar's 1950s NBC program "Your Show of Shows" featured Imogene Coca and writers such as Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart. Caesar died today at home in Beverly Hills.
For five years during the Great Depression, Shirley Temple was the most popular movie star in America of any age. Her popularity saved 20th Century Fox. She later became an ambassador and prominent Republican.
Leonard Knight spent almost 30 years building a colorful mountain of adobe covered with donated paint in the Imperial Valley desert near Salton Sea. Knight and Salvation Mountain were featured in the film "Into the Wild."
Schell won his best actor Oscar for the 1961 Staley Kramer film "Judgment at Nuremberg.” He later directed “Der Rosenkavalier” for the Los Angeles Opera in 2005.
The Academy Award-winning actor was discovered this morning with a syringe in his arm and a packet of what appears to be heroin, a law enforcement source told the New York Times. He was 46. More inside.
Sherak was Mayor Eric Garcetti's designated ambassador between the film industry, City Hall and Sacremento. He died today after a long battle with prostate cancer.
Pete Seeger, a champion of American folk music and social change since the 1940s, collected songs in the South with Alan Lomax, traveled in California with Woody Guthrie, performed for President Barack Obama — and adapted the civil rights movement anthem "We Shall Overcome."
Jones led Northrop for three decades and after retiring created Moraga Vineyards and its respected winery on a slope in Bel Air — a premium winery within the city limits of Los Angeles.
Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers, the influential duo that became one of the first ten groups inducted into the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, died in Burbank at age 74. He had been battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley covered Congress for the New York Times and helped train a generation of government reporters. She died on Dec. 29 after a long illness.
Dominis, a Los Angeles native, learned photography at Fremont High and went on to shoot several of the most iconic photos from the era when Life was America's most popular picture magazine.
O'Connor covered wars for NPR and the New York Times, and Los Angeles for Channel 2, before taking on the delicate mission of protecting journalists trying to cover corruption and the deadly drug wars in Mexico.
If you formed an all-star team of baseball players from South Los Angeles — and you could, easily — the graceful Oriole who beat the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series would be on it.
Myers worked in Hollywood over at least five decades and was the publicist for, among others, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and Cary Grant.
Joan Fontaine won her best actress Academy Award in 1941 for Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and was nominated twice more. She feuded for much of her career with sister Olivia de Havilland.
O'Toole died Saturday in London. "Ireland, and the world, has lost one of the giants of film and theatre," said the president of Ireland in a statement.
LaMotte died this morning while in San Diego for the annual convention of the California School Boards Association. The longtime member of the Los Angeles Board of Education from South LA was first elected in 2003.
Statements by the Mandela Foundation, President Obama, Mayor Garcetti and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
Youssef, the longtime OC Weekly music writer-photographer who documented his battle against colon cancer in a column for the paper, died over the weekend surrounded by family and friends.
The Los Angeles poet "was a key figure in the literary life of Los Angeles....[and] helped transform the city's literature." Update: An appreciation by David Ulin.
His death was announced by KQED, the public radio station where he was executive director of news and public affairs. He previously was a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Examiner and the Oakland Tribune.
The Life photographer took the most remembered image of Robert Kennedy in a pool of blood on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel pantry on June 5, 1968.
Plesko, the Budapest-born author "known for Beat Generation-inspired novels," died on Monday morning after jumping from the roof of the building where he lived in Venice, the authorities said.
Dolby revolutionized the recording industry with his noise-reduction system in the 1960s and transformed the way we hear movies starting in the 1970s.
Cal Worthington might arguably have been the most recognized Southern California car dealer from his decades on television pitching his Worthington Ford dealership. Worthington "and his dog Spot" —which could have been an elephant or tiger or hippo — sold cars here starting in 1950 in Huntington Park.
In "Remembering Malibu," Heaney wrote lovingly of the Pacific shore after lunch with novelist Brian Moore on the bluffs. Heaney died in Dublin after a short illness.
Music Man Murray is the record collector who has a huge collection of vinyl kept in a building on Exposition Boulevard near La Brea. He became an actor at age 80.
Fox 11 News in Los Angeles reported that its investigative reporter and producer Martin Burns was the hiker who died Sunday in a hiking accident in the foothills above Altadena.
The master of the crime novel and the writer of many screenplays and books that were turned into movies died at home in Michigan after suffering a stroke. "A modern master of American genre writing," says the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Fire Department news and information blog announced today that Fire Captain/Paramedic Matthew G. McKnight was found unresponsive this morning inside the Metropolitan Fire Communications Center on East Temple Street.
The Chinese Theatre, where "The Wizard of Oz" premiered in August 1939, will dim the lights tonight at 9 p.m. Two Munchkins are believed to survive.
Michael Ansara had one of those Hollywood careers that lasted a long time and is fun to examine. Because he was of Lebanese heritage (born in Syria but raised in the U.S.), he went from the drama department at Los Angeles City College into a succession of "ethnic" roles.
The Channel 7 photojournalist popular among his colleagues and the LA press corps died Wednesday about two weeks after suffering a stroke. "Great guy, friendly and fair," Mayor Garcetti said by tweet.
Brennan, who grew up in Los Angeles, won an Obie Award for "Little Mary Sunshine" [title fixed] and was memorable in "The Last Picture Show." But it's her role as Capt. Doreen Lewis in "Private Benjamin" that many will remember most.
Farren, founder and lead singer of The Deviants, wrote for the LA Reader and City Beat before returning to England in 2010. He collapsed Saturday night while performing with the band in London.
Art Ginsburg was the proprietor of Art's Deli in Studio City, which has been a politics, community and Valleywood hangout for decades. The deli will be closed Friday.
Dennis Farina was a police officer and detective in Chicago for 18 years before he turned full-time to acting — playing mostly, but not solely, cops or gangsters.
Thomas, who died today at age 92, was the dean of the White House press corps. In 2007 she spoke with Jacob Soboroff about women's equality and being a trailblazer.
Coleman was part of the big sex discrimination lawsuit by women at Newsweek in 1970, then became the newsmagazine's San Francisco correspondent, then the first female press secretary for a California governor.
Richard Matheson wrote "I Am Legend," which was turned into films three times, and also wrote 16 episodes of the original "Twilight Zone" television series for Rod Serling. He was the screenwriter as well for "Duel," Steven Spielberg's 1971 TV movie debut.
Blues and R&B legend Bobby "Blue" Bland died Sunday night at his home in Memphis. The singer of "Turn on Your Love Light" and "Further On Up the Road" was known as "the Sinatra of the blues" and worked closely with B.B. King.
From 2004. "He is, as Tony Soprano might put it, a made man in the actor's studio," James Lipton said in his introduction.
The star of HBO's "The Sopranos" has died in Italy of a heart attack or a stroke.
"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone," says Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed. "Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians."
Helen Brush Jenkins shot photos for the original Los Angeles Daily News, the long-defunct newspaper whose memory the LA journalist Rip Rense has carefully kept alive. He advises that Jenkins died today in Chicago. More inside.
Lewis was an actor who played gangster “Toots” Bass in the Humphrey Bogart classic "Key Largo," then went on to open a number of restaurants that became Hollywood hangouts. Lewis and his wife, Marilyn, opened the first Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Strip in 1950.
Esther Williams, the swimming star of MGM's Technicolor musicals in the 1940s and 50s, died Thursday morning at home in Beverly Hills at age 91. "Esther’s movies were sheer escapism and didn’t pretend to be anything more," says Maltin
Don Oliver covered the Vietnam War, the civil rights era and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King before coming to the NBC bureau in Burbank. He was with the network for 25 years. Video inside: Brian Williams pays tribute.
"Melville was the most extraordinary advocate Los Angeles theater has known," says the CEO of LA Stage Alliance.
Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist, died at a clinic in Germany. Manzarek had cancer of the bile ducts. Sunset Strip clubs dimmed the lights Monday night in his honor. Video and photos inside.
Jeffries was one of Los Angeles car culture's "preeminent automotive sculptors and engineers." He began pinstriping with Von Dutch in the early 1950s and settled into the Valley.
In an era before CGI, Harryhausen used clay monsters and mythical creatures to bring life to live-action adventure films like 'Clash of the Titans,' 'Valley of the Gwangi' and 'Jason and the Argonauts. He was one of the sci-fi club members who patronized Clifton's with Ray Bradbury in the 1930s.
Mario Machado was a familiar presence on Los Angeles TV and radio for a few decades starting in 1967, when he joined Channel 9 (then KHJ-TV) as the city's first Chinese-American TV news reporter. He was a soccer booster in LA before the sport was cool and a founder of AYSO. Girls play soccer today because of Mario Machado, a friend posted on Facebook.
Sandstone Retreat was a clothing-optional refuge in Topanga Canyon that began in the late 1960s, became famous during the sexual revolution, and survived efforts by the county to shut it down. John Williamson opened the retreat with his wife, Barbara, after being inspired by Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" to quit his aerospace job at Lockheed.
Wilson was a Los Angeles Times art critic from 1965 until he retired in 1998, and the chief critic for 20 of those years.
Noel Greenwood was the editor in charge of local and California coverage at the Los Angeles Times during the 1980s and some of the '90s, I believe. He hired scores if not hundreds of the journalists who passed through the Times and went on to populate newsrooms around the world. Greenwood died today at his home in Santa Barbara of prostate cancer complications.
The high school social studies teacher gained legend status on the Eastside for his mentoring of Chicano students and for being arrested during the 1968 Chicano walkouts. The middle school on the campus of Belmont High was named for Castro in 2010.
Another of Southern California's fast food pioneers has died. John Galardi was a student at Pasadena Junior College when he started working for Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell. Galardi opened his first hot dog stand on Pacific Coast Highway in Wilmington, next to a Taco Bell, in 1961.
Jonathan Winters had one of those long, varied entertainment industry careers after working New York comedy clubs and moving to early television in the 1950s. "One of the great comedians of the 20th century," the LA Times says.
The Orange County Register's longtime radio writer, Gary Lycan, died in his sleep on Tuesday, the paper reported this afternoon. Lycan had prostate cancer in recent years. His friend and collaborator Manny Pacheco posts a nice tribute: "the most difficult blog story I have ever written..."
America's 1950s darling was discovered by Walt Disney in a dance recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank. After the original "Mickey Mouse Club" on ABC, she became popular again as a teen idol and in the mid-1960s "Beach" movies with Frankie Avalon. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she long ago lost the ability to walk or talk. Last year, Canada's CTV aired a superb report on Funicello and MS. Videos and links inside.
Dan Turner was a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board who wrote on a wide range of topics. He died Saturday at home in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer that was diagnosed about two years ago. He had continued to write editorials and blog items for the Times' opinion section until taking a leave of absence only about a week ago.
Bobby Rogers shared a birthday with Smokey Robinson and they began singing together at Detroit's Northern High School. Their group, The Matadors, changed its name to The Miracles after Rogers' cousin, Claudette Rogers, joined. They became the first Motown Records success.
Colby Evett owned and operated Evett's Model Shop on Ocean Park Boulevard in Santa Monica. The store celebrated its 65th anniversary in January.
Saylor started his own public relations firm in 2007 after leaving Sitrick & Co., and before that was entertainment editor for the LA Times Business section. He oversaw the Pulitzer-winning stories on the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, radio payola and luxury detox by reporters Chuck Philips and Michael Hiltzik.
Jerry Buss grew up in Depression-era Wyoming and moved to Southern California in 1953, worked for awhile in aerospace plants then made money in real estate — a West LA apartment building originally. He bought the Los Angeles Strings of the World Team Tennis league in 1974, and in 1979 was ready when Jack Kent Cooke, in the midst of a nasty divorce, needed to sell the Forum and his prize, the Los Angeles Lakers. Buss died today of kidney failure after fighting cancer.
MacKay died Tuesday of wounds incurred during the firefight with fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner outside a cabin in the 7 Oaks area of the San Bernardino Mountains. He lived in Redlands and was assigned to the Yucaipa station. MacKay is survived by his wife, 7-year-old daughter and four-month-old son.
KFI News tweeted that employees of the burrito stand, on Evergreen Avenue since 1952, confirmed Rojas' death. Rojas is credited with creating the Hollenbeck Burrito.
Crain, an 11-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department, was the officer killed the morning of Feb. 7 when allegedly ambushed by rogue ex-LAPD cop Christopher Dorner. He was an 11-year veteran of the Riverside PD, a Marine veteran of Kuwait, and leaves a wife and two children.
Michael Parrish was a longtime presence on the magazine journalism scene in Los Angeles as an editor and writer. He was founding editor of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, a contributor to Playboy, New West, California and other magazines, and a lecturer at USC Annenberg. He died today in the LA area, according to friends.
Haas was a reporter and columnist at the Orange County Register for more than 20 years, a publicist for the Irvine Company, a book reviewer for Orange Coast magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist on aging and women's issues — and more.
O'Neill gained a measure of Los Angeles radio immortality when he became the first voice heard on KRLA when the AM station switched to rock and roll (from country western music) in 1959. He went on to become LA's top radio deejay, then at age 24 went national as the host of ABC's short-lived rock music show "Shindig" in 1964. Here's some video.
Leon Leyson, who died Saturday in Whittier, was not quite ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and pushed his family into the Krakow ghetto. He taught at Huntington Park High School for nearly four decades without talking much about his Holocaust experiences.
Aaron Swartz, who as a teenager helped create RSS, then went on to become a folk hero for Internet users who believe information should be free online, was found hanged in his New York City apartment. He had faced a federal trial on charges of wire fraud and computer fraud in connection with the downloading of millions of documents from an MIT database.
Mouzis was the production director at formative LA radio station 93 KHJ and editor of the 48-hour "History of Rock and Roll" — the station's 1969 rockumentary.
Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly reported late this morning that California television icon Huell Howser has died. Arellano based his story on sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. A few minutes later, KPCC "Off-Ramp" host John Rabe tweeted that Howser's assistant confirmed that he died last night at home.
Page was to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award next month. The top selling female recording artist of the 1950s died in a nursing home in Encinitas.
I'm catching up on some locally prominent deaths I've missed during the holiday slowdown. Video inside: 17 minutes of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida."
The son of cowboy star Harry Carey was born on his father's ranch near Saugus and went on to ride horses in the westerns directed by pal John Ford and act in many other films and TV shows. Through Ford, Carey also was part of an exclusive San Fernando Valley club of Hollywood men that's now mostly forgotten.
Fontella Bass, a church choir singer in St. Louis who recorded as a soul singer for Chess Records and had a hit with "Rescue Me" in 1965, died Wednesday at age 72 in her hometown. She suffered a heart attack three weeks ago.
Actor Jack Klugman began on television in 1950 and became known as a character actor ( in "Twilight Zone" and many other series) until he broke through as the co-star of "The Odd Couple" from 1970-75 and the star of "Quincy M.E." from 1976-83. One of his most enduring roles, though, was as Juror #5 in the jury room in the Oscar-nominated 1957 film "Twelve Angry Men."
Friesen was the longtime president of A&M Records, executive producer of "The Breakfast Club" and was at work on a documentary about back-up singers called "Twenty Feet From Stardom."
Jeni LeGon made her name in the 1930s singing and dancing with other African-American stars such as Bill Bojangles Robinson and Fats Waller. She later taught dance in Los Angeles, the NYT says.
Ray Briem was the overnight talker on KABC-AM from 1967-1994 and kind of pioneered the form here in Los Angeles. That made him the welcomed late-night companion to thousands.
Ravi Shankar has died in San Diego after being admitted to Scripps Memorial Hospital last week complaining of breathing difficulties. The legendary musician and his musician daughter Anoushka are nominated for 2013 Grammy awards in the world music category. The prime minister of India has confirmed the death and called Shankar a national treasure.
Authorities in Mexico say that the remains of singer Jenni Rivera were found overnight in the wreckage field of her jet that crashed Sunday in mountains in the state of Nuevo Leon.
Jenni Rivera, who was born in Long Beach, is a popular performer and songwriter in the Mexican Nortena and banda styles and a rising television star on both sides of the border. She recently signed a deal with ABC to develop a comedy around her. Rivera is divorced from former Dodgers pitcher Esteban Loaiza and leaves five children.
The modernist designed one home in the United States, the Strick House in Santa Monica. He never saw it.
Grieving members of the Coast Guard Cutter Halibut and other friends spoke to the media in Marina del Rey Monday about their late shipmate, Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne.
Chief Petty Officer Horne, of Redondo Beach, was out with the Marina Del Rey cutter Halibut when a suspected smuggling vessel rammed his inflatable boat, throwing Horne into the sea near Santa Cruz Island.
David Courtney, the arena announcer for the Los Angeles Kings and Clippers at Staples Center and the stadium announcer in Anaheim for the Angels, has died at age 56. No cause was given by the Kings, but Courtney had tweeted yesterday that he was at a hospital awaiting an angiogram.
The Dallas Morning News says that the longtime actor died this afternoon of cancer complications in a Dallas hospital. He was reportedly in town to film episodes of the TNT remake of the hit TV show "Dallas," in which Hagman played star J.R. Ewing.
Born Sam Bensussen, he worked for 40 years at KLAC radio and Metromedia, was the editorial director for Channel 11, and in the 1950s and 60s was a commercial pitchman on local airwaves: "Se habla espanol at Lou’s Garage."
Wilbur Woo immigrated to Los Angeles in 1921, became the head of his family's Chungking Produce Co., a vice president of Cathay Bank, and emerged as a top Chinese American community leader in Los Angeles. Woo, a Republican, was the top contributor when his son, Democrat Michael Woo, ran and became the first Chinese American elected to the Los Angeles City Council.
Snyder represented Northeast LA's 14th district on the Los Angeles City Council for 18 years, until 1985. He was a City Hall deputy before that. Born in Los Angeles, Snyder attended Los Angeles City College, Pepperdine University and USC. He became a lobbyist after leaving office and was living in Huntington Beach, where he owned Don the Beachcomber, when he died in his sleep on Wednesday.
Friends on Facebook and Twitter and staffers at the duopoly newsroom in Studio City are saying that Joel Connable, a reporter at CBS 2/KCAL 9 for three years until 2005, has died. Connable had just started a new anchor gig at KOMO-TV in Seattle last month, after being out of the local news business since 2009.
Carmen Warschaw was a major figure in Democratic politics in Los Angeles and beyond for decades. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky announced her death today at the Board of Supervisors.
Bill Dees was a Nashville songwriter working with Roy Orbison in 1964 when they wrote 'Oh, Pretty Woman," inspired by Orbison's wife Claudette. The song changed both of their lives forever.
Saturday morning on one of Los Angeles' longest-running radio programs, the hosts will announce the death of John Retsek, who created "The Car Show" on KPFK in 1973. They will talk about John and possibly take calls from the legions of listeners who have listened to the show or been guests in its nearly four decades on the air — the odd duck among the politically charged news, talk and revolutionary rhetoric at the Pacifica-owned radio station.
Maury Weiner was Mayor Tom Bradley's first chief of staff and a key figure in the black-Jewish liberal coalition that helped elect Bradley in 1973 and that was dominant in city politics for awhile. More recently Weiner was chairman of the Tom Bradley Legacy Foundation at UCLA. Weiner died on Sept. 30.
The Coro community in Los Angeles is reporting online the death last night of John Greenwood, the president of Coro Southern California and a former president of the Board of Education. More details to come.
After 35 years at CBS, assignment editor Steve Crawford left the newsroom at Channels 2 and 9 on May 23 without revealing to anyone that he had stage 3 esophageal cancer. He insisted that no one know, his wife says in a note posted at the station today.
Mervyn Dymally served as California's lieutenant governor during Jerry Brown's first term as governor in the 1970s and also at various times represented the Compton area and southern LA County in Congress, the state Senate and the Assembly (twice.) His career as an elected office holder spanned four decades, starting with the Assembly in 1963.
If you didn't grow up in the Los Angeles area during the baby boom, you can leave the room for a couple of minutes. Though if your parents fit the description, you might want to stick around.
Character actor Lance LeGault worked in Hollywood for 50 years. You know his face and his deep voice, as in the following video.
Many in Los Angeles just became acquainted with the architectural photographs of Pedro E. Guerrero this April when he appeared at an exhibition of his work at Wodbury University's gallery...
Johnny Perez came out of San Antonio as the drummer of the 1960s band Sir Douglas Quintet, which had hits with 'She's About a Mover" and "Mendocino." Perez landed in Topanga Canyon and more recently owned Topanga Skyline Studio, a famous recording venue used by Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Sting, T-Bone Burnett and others.
The North Korea-born self-proclaimed messiah who turned his Unification Church into a worldwide religious movement died Monday at a church-owned hospital near Seoul, AP reports.
Gerber, 41, had left a suicide note. His crashed car was found this morning off Angeles Crest Highway.
Terry Tracy moved to the beach in Malibu in 1956, built a shack and became "the personification of the rebellious surf subculture that emerged in California in the late 1950s." He may — or may not — have also been the first surfer to call beach girl Kathy Kohner "Gidget."
Scott McKenzie, who died Saturday at home in Silver Lake, is best known for singing the ballad "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," which beckoned the youth of the world to come to the first Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and became an anthem of that year's Summer of Love. The song, written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and released by Lou Adler's Ode Records, went as high as No. 4 on the Billboard chart but was No. 1 across Europe. Check out this video from Monterey.
Comic Phyllis Diller lived a good long time and had a long career. Many female comedians say she paved the way. She died this morning at her Los Angeles home, her manager Milt Suchin confirmed. Watch her with Groucho Marx on "You Bet Your Life," inside.
Longtime Channel 7 photographer Artie Williams died over the weekend while diving with a friend off Catalina Island, the station announced.
Helen Gurley Brown was the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazines for three decades and the author of the 1962 bestseller, "Sex and the Single Girl." "Helen Gurley Brown was an icon," said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation.
Karl Fleming covered the civil rights movement in the South and Los Angeles for Newsweek, started a local magazine and was the editor of Chanel 2 news. His memoir was "Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir."
"It was no surprise; he'd been talking about it for months. He even named August as when it would happen."
Nick B. Williams Jr., a veteran Los Angeles Times reporter and editor who also was the son of the paper's former editor, died this morning in Texas at age 75.
Judith Crist was the critic for many years on the "Today" show and in print at TV Guide and elsewhere. She had two long stints at TV Guide &mdash the first before they fired her in favor of computerized summaries of films, the second after a deluge of reader complaints forced the editors to ask her back.
Hamlisch collapsed and died in Los Angeles on Monday. He has won three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. He had been scheduled to return in September as conductor of the Pasadena Symphony and Pops.
Just your average cigar-smoking, tequila-swigging, pistol-packing lesbian Mexican ranchera singer who may have had a love affair with Frida Kahlo.
Vidal died this evening at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers has been telling the media.
John Bogert is the South Bay columnist who announced in his final column last month in the Daily Breeze that he had stopped treatment for his colon cancer. The paper has just posted the news that Bogert died Sunday afternoon at home in Pasadena.
Ontiveros, a versatile actress from El Paso who came to Hollywood and once estimated she had a played a maid 150 times on stage or screen, died Thursday night of cancer in Whittier. She's being remembered as a Mexican American symbol and as an activist, as well as for her acting. "It is with deep sadness yet much pride that we reflect upon a woman whose immense contributions opened the door for Latinos and touched so many through her artistic talent," Mayor Villaraigosa said in a statement.
Between them, Everett and Hemsley appeared on screen in many hours of episodic television. And for many, Everett played it just right during the scene of Betty's audition in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive."
Sally Ride, who grew up in the Encino and graduated from Stanford, became in 1983 the first American woman to work in space. She was also the youngest American at the time to fly into space for NASA. She died today of pancreatic cancer.
Frank Pierson served as president of both the Writers Guild, West, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. He rose in Hollywood as a screenwriter and director. He got his start on the TV series' "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Naked City" and "Route 66." He won the original screenplay Oscar in 1976 for "Dog Day Afternoon."
Asher directed 100 episodes of "I Love Lucy," brought the Gidget character to television, directed the popular series of 1960s beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and produced the "Bewitched" TV series that starred his then-wife, Elizabeth Montgomery.
Willis Edwards, part of the Robert F. Kennedy for president campaign in Los Angeles in 1968 and later a key member of the Tom Bradley adminsitration at City Hall, died today of cancer. He was the longtime president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch of the NAACP.
Richard D. Zanuck, the son of 20th Century Fox legend Daryl F. Zanuck who grew up to produce "Jaws" and other major Hollywood films, died of a heart attack Friday in Los Angeles. He was 77.
Philip L. Fradkin, a native New Yorker who I believe became the first environment reporter at the Los Angeles Times, died Saturday of cancer at his home in Point Reyes Station. After the Times he went on to write numerous books about California and the West, focusing on earthquakes, water, history and the natural environment.
How's this for an acting career? Raise a glass to Ernest Borgnine, who died about 1:30 this afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Michael J. Ybarra, a freelance writer from Los Angeles who had a regular gig writing about extreme sports for the Wall Street Journal, died in a fall while mountain climbing in the Sierra Nevada.
Griffith died Tuesday morning back home in Manteo, North Carolina. He received a Tony acting nomination for "No Time for Sergeants" on Broadway in 1955, before going into movies and on TV with "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1960.
Jim Drake is another example of an aerospace industry worker who pioneered the Southern California outdoor sports scene. Drake, an engineer who worked at RAND and elsewhere, didn't invent the sailboard, but he and a partner, Hoyle Schweitzer, perfected the design and got a patent for the Windsurfer.
Banfield, a television presence in Los Angeles for 43 years, had cancer. Also: Cindy Frazier, city editor.
Ephron grew up in Beverly Hills, made a name for herself as a journalist in New York, got into screenwriting via collaboration with then-husband Carl Bernstein on a version of "All the President's Men," and grew into what People magazine calls today "one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood as the creative force behind such blockbusters as 'You've Got Mail,' 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'When Harry Met Sally.'"
The painter mostly of sports scenes and the Olympics, and a longtime contributor to Playboy magazine, died today, his publicist told AP.
Andrew Sarris, the former film critic for the Village Voice and the New York Observer who died Wednesday morning, taught American moviegoers to obsess about directors.
Rodney King's fiancee called for help about 5:25 this morning, saying he was at the bottom of their swimming pool in the city of Rialto. Police officers removed King from the pool and attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, has an interesting personal story in addition to being highly accomplished in her field. She came to economics later in life, after putting her first husband through law school and working in the HR department at UCLA.
Ray Bradbury died last night, his daughter has confirmed. For his 90th birthday, Bradbury talked about remembering his birth and the womb. "I have total recall of all of my life." Updated stories, links and video
The Platters were another popular vocal group that formed in Los Angeles and lasted. Reed, a Kansas City native, was there at the beginning — he gets credit for naming the group — and he sang bass "on all of the 400 recordings the group made during its peak years, including four that reached No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart." Video and obits
Paratore was a television producer and president of Telepictures, a production division of Warner Bros. Television. He helped to create "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," and in 2006 he teamed up with Harvey Levin to create TMZ.com.
The founder of music publisher TRO, The Richmond Organization, "contributed mightily and without fanfare to the music business for nearly three quarters of a century," family friend and former employee Michael Sigman, the former LA Weekly publisher, writes at the Huffington Post.
There are more people interred at Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood than live in Westwood today. Or in Beverly Hills and Culver City combined. More stats for Memorial Day.
Claudia Laffranchi was part of the colony of overseas journalists who cover Hollywood for global media outlets and participate in related events. She was, for instance, the host and master of ceremonies of the Locarno Film Festival’s screenings. Laffranchi was found dead Tuesday in her Los Angeles-area apartment.
The Rev. Hamel Hartford Brookins, who was pastor of the influential First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles during the rise and tenure of Mayor Tom Bradley, died Tuesday in a Los Angeles retirement center.
Otto Jensen, reportedly a longtime photographer for Hollywood studios, was 101 years old when he was struck and killed Tuesday night by a car driven by a 91-year-old woman, Burbank police said.
Artist J. Michael Walker sends word that his friend Calvin Hicks died on Sunday, from complications of cancer. Hicks' photography was most recently seen in the Pacific Standard Time exhibition, "Identity & Affirmation: Post-War African-American Photography," at Cal State Northridge.Also: Otto Jensen, Burbank photographer was 101
Los Angeles car culture never saw anyone like Big Willie Robinson — or needed anyone quite so much. In the mid 1960s, when baby boomers were racing hot rods and fighting each other and the cops all around town, he created the International Brotherhood of Street Racers and brought some order to the subculture. (Big Willie stood 6'6" and people listened.) I'm guessing he was the only 6'6" black man to speak at Otis Chandler's memorial service. Tributes, backstory and video
The singer known for her disco era hits such as "Love to Love You Baby," "Last Dance" and "On The Radio" has died of lung cancer.
The novelist, called in the New York Times obituary "Mexico’s elegant public intellectual and grand man of letters," died today in Mexico City. Fuentes was "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world, a catalyst, along with Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortazar, of the explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and ’70s known as 'El Boom.'"
Carroll Shelby, the auto racing legend who died last week in Dallas at age 89, apparently divided his time recently between Texas and Beverly Hills. The Southern California chapters of his career, though, are a pretty important part of the story.
A former newshand at KFWB, Buhler moved into the Christian broadcasting side of radio in 1980. He did his final "Talk From the Heart" show on KBRT/740 AM in Costa Mesa last Sept. 16 due to advancing cancer of the pancreas.
The creator of "Where the Wild Things Are" and other dark children's fantasy books died Tuesday at a hospital in Danbury, Conn. "Where the Wild Things Are," published in 1963, became one of the bestselling children's books of all time. Here he is with Stephen Colbert.
The Inglewood artist died over the weekend, just a week after the opening of the Expo Line, which features his artwork in the Crenshaw station. The MTA joined friends on Facebook in announcing his death.
A 911 call came from Seau's Oceanside home about 10 a.m. Responders found Seau dead of a gunshot wound that appears to be self-inflicted.
Back when most baseball players were lean and a little mean, Bill Skowron looked like his nickname: Moose. He was big and muscular, but he actually got the name in childhood because somebody thought he resembled the Italian dictator Mussolini. Obit material
Lucy Delgado, the founder of the Mothers of East Los Angeles activist group that formed to fight construction of a prison in Boyle Heights, died on April 11. She lived her entire life in Boyle Heights.
"He was my bosom buddy friend to the end, one of the last true great spirits of my or any other generation. This is just so sad to talk about...." More inside.
Jesse Linares, the city editor of Hoy Los Angeles, died on Saturday after a battle with cancer. From El Salvador, he had previously worked in the newsroom at La Opinión.
Television legend Dick Clark has died. The popularizer of "American Bandstand" in Philadelphia in the 1950s went on to become a true TV programming impresario. "The oldest living teenager" reportedly suffered a heart attack this morning after an outpatient procedure at St. John's hospital in Santa Monica.
The Hollywood publicist choked on a meat sample at the Gelson's in Century City on March 24 and died after two weeks in the hospital, The Wrap reports.
Savko bought a small grocery on the twisty part of Mulholland Highway in the Santa Monicas west of the San Fernando Valley in 1961. He would park his Harley-Davidson out front, other bikers would see it, and they began stopping in.
The television newsman who pretty much invented the style of the tough interview in the early years of the medium died Saturday at a care facility in Connecticut. His last appearance on "60 Minutes," and on TV, was an interview with Roger Clemens in 2008. We have vintage video as tributes pour in.
The Sacramento Bee announced the death of the paper's editorial cartoonist on Friday of cancer.
Kimberlng, the art director of Los Angeles magazine from 2000 to 2009, died Thursday of complications from cancer.
A memorial service is set for April 4 at Hollywood Forever for "the coolest news cat in town" and a revered figure at KCAL 9.
This piece ran in The Atlantic in March 1982 and is credited as an influential argument in the movement toward community policing embraced here and in New York by William J. Bratton. The magazine posted it online in its entirety following Wilson's death on Friday.
Andrew Breitbart's websites announced thus morning that the conservative commentator and founder of a number of news and political websites died overnight of natural causes.
The lead singer of the musical group The Monkees that was cast for a television show that ran on NBC from 1966-68 died of a heart attack in Indiantown, Florida, where he lived.
Two were session musicians and more, while Levee was the principal clarinetist of the LA Philharmonic.
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson just announced the death of foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid to the staff. He apparently was stricken with an asthma attack.
Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter, born in Culver City, played one season with the Dodgers near the end of his career
Jeffrey Kaye worked at the San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and The Hollywood Reporter, and wrote for TV Guide and the Los Angeles Times.
"Whitney Houston was one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades," Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow says.
Publicist Kristen Foster told AP on Saturday afternoon that the singer had died. TMZ reports she died at the Beverly Hilton, where she was to attend a Clive Davis party tonight.
Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer and the author of books on Gabby Gifford, Chesley Sullenberger and last lecture professor Randy Pausch, died Friday of injuries suffered in a car crash.
I didn't really know the Jill Kinmont story until reading today's LA Times obituary, but it has so many noteworthy elements. I've spent an hour reading about her.
Equestrians of the northeast Valley will ride Sunday in memory of Bert Bonnett, a legend in the horsey communities of Shadow Hills and Sunland.
South Pasadena police say that artist Mike Kelley was found dead Tuesday night at home and may have killed himself.
Police responded this morning to his Mulholland Drive home and found Cornelius dead, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot.
Friends of the environmental attorney Roger Carrick held a well-attended life celebration last night at Para Los Niños, the Downtown childrens' center where he was on the board and the former chairman.
The well-known criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles recently was directing attorney of the Post Conviction Assistance Center. She died last week.
Levy's clients included Cannonball Adderley, Betty Carter, Roberta Flack, Herbie Hancock, Shirley Horn, Freddie Hubbard, Ramsey Lewis, Herbie Mann, Les McCann, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson and many others. In 2006 the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Levy's role in jazz.
Rep. Gabrielle Gifords to leave Congress, Simpson case detective Philip Vannatter dies and more.
The Penn State football legend who was fired last year over a child sex scandal involving an assistant died Sunday, his family announced. CBS Sports apologized for posting an erroneous news story about his death on Saturday.
Etta James, who was 73, is another of the great R&B figures to come out of the Los Angeles area. She died Friday in Riverside after suffering from ill health, including leukemia and dementia.
The 29-year-old freeskier from Canada who suffered a head injury and brain damage during a Jan. 10 training run on the superpipe at Park Mountain Resort in Utah, died this morning. Her organs and tissues were donated in accordance with her wishes.
Johnny Otis, the white songwriter and singer from the Bay Area who said he "chose" to live as a black man, died in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday.
They paddled out Sunday by the hundreds in Huntington Beach to chill for a few moments of silence in memory of pioneering wave forecaster Sean Collins — followed by a ritual splashing of water and cheering that could be heard from shore.
Tony Blankley, the former Reagan speechwriter and press secretary to Newt Gingrich in Congress who was the conservative presence on KCRW's Left, Right and Center, died Saturday after battling stomach cancer.
Eve Arnold was one of the first female photojournalists to join the Magnum Photos agency, in 1951. She did a book of her photos of Marilyn Monroe.
The Music Machine got a regular gig at Hollywood Legion Lanes bowling alley and in 1966 scored their only chart hit, "Talk Talk."
Rourke, familiar to many journalists as the head of Caltech's communications office from 1986 to 2009, died at home in Pasadena after battling pulmonary fibrosis.
Sean Collins, a self-taught wave forecaster who changed the way that surfers find out where to take their boards, died yesterday after collapsing of a heart attack while playing tennis in Orange County.
Death was attributed to a "severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack" in the report on North Korea television in Pyongyang, delivered by a tearful woman dressed in black.
The author and Vanity Fair contributing editor has died of cancer at a hospital in Houston, the magazine announced.
The music industry veteran who was shot in his Mercedes by Tyler Brehm in Friday's rampage in Hollywood died of his injuries this afternoon, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center announced.
Barbara Orbison, who was 60, died here in Los Angeles on Dec. 6, the 23rd anniversary of the death of her husband Roy Orbison.
Wow, just take a look at Harry Morgan's career.
Mayor chooses distance from Housing Authority scandal, DWP approves water rate increase, more politics and media notes, plus the most powerful images of 2011.
Dobie Gray, born in Texas, moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to be an actor but had greater success as a singer. (He did spend a couple of...
Voters want a do-over on high speed rail, DWP board takes up rate hike, a different Villaraigosa joins the Young Democrats, naming a Navy ship after Cesar Chavez and more.
Lumachi died early Saturday in a car accident in Florida, where he was attending a conference in St. Petersburg.
Media and politics notes, plus a Hollywood obituary and more.
High winds, Westwood loses four movie screens, an old local pol dies and more.
The co-host of the Korean-language Prime News on Los Angeles-area TV channel LA 18 was found dead in her Koreatown apartment last Monday after not reporting to work.
Dick Adler, who used to write the cheeky Page Two feature at the old Herald Examiner, and more recently a book reviewer and blogger, died on Nov. 11.
Lowering expectations on Natalie Wood case, tearing down the 6th Street bridge, media notes and a local sports death.
Mayor wants to trim trees too, the dangers of ignoring Mexico, Chelsea Clinton, Teresa Hughes and The Wave goes Christmas.
Sunday's New York Times print edition carries an obituary of Alan Mootnick, the founder and director of Santa Clarita's Gibbon Conservation Center who died Nov. 4.
Romenesko, the Geffen Playhouse, Evelyn Martinez, Haskell Wexler, Winston Doby and more.
The singer known as Heavy D collapsed this morning outside his home in Beverly Hills, and was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai.
Mayor appeals to car dealers, Madeline Janis steps down, Yaroslavsky takes a ride, Playboy moves back to Beverly Hills, Kirk Honeycutt out at THR and more.
Wilson, who pledged to plant five trees a day for the rest of his life, died after losing consciousness while taking clippings from a tree in hi sgarden.
Baca (and Lohan) and the jails, Durkee and the money, Jim Ladd gets to say goodbye, UCLA warns patients and more.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the death of USC professor of public policy Harry Pachon, founding board member and past executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
CBS News announced that Rooney died Friday night in a hospital in New York City of complications following minor surgery.
Gilbert Cates, the stage, film and TV producer and director and the producing director of the Geffen Playhouse, has died at age 77.
Former Press-Telegram executive editor has died, plus more news items.
Barbara Kent, a 1925 graduate of Hollywood High School, is being called the last living actress to have achieved stardom in silent films.
"The best radio writer-producer-director in the whole history of radio," said longtime friend Ray Bradbury.
Mengers' death was announced by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who posted this afternoon on his blog that she died last night "at her home, a short walk from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and surrounded by three of her close friends, Ali MacGraw, Joanna Poitier, and Boaty Boatwright."
Margaret Tante Burk, a publicist and businesswoman here, co-founded Round Table West with Marylin Hudson at the Ambassador Hotel in 1977. The forum for authors grew into one of the...
Worst mass killing in OC history, new sheriff abuse report, feds to target media in pot war, Art Walk tonight and KCSN gets rock star support.
The last owner of an NFL team in Los Angeles died this morning at home in Oakland.
On life and death, among other topics.
Steve Jobs died today in Palo Alto of complications from pancreatic cancer.
Warning Obama about Solyndra, warning victims about clemency, Villaraigosa wrong on prisoners, new book from Jim Newton, Red Line turnstiles and remembering Gregg Miller and Amy Pressman.
Brian Alexik goes free, Kinde Durkee's lifestyle, Baca listens in the jail, Jerry Brown and running again, plus more HuffPost announcements and a local media death. And: is Henry's Tacos worthy of historic status?
More fundraising after Obama, what to make of Yaroslavsky, Feuer waits on Trutanich, City Hall staff moves, a newspaper here is hiring, and the Angels beat the Dodgers. Plus more for Monday.
Reiner never got to live there, but the home has become a modernist landmark considered one of John Lautner's masterpieces.
The widow of comedian Bob Hope died this morning.
Emmy winners, Durkee fallout on campaigns, some candidate chatter, getting longer yellow lights in L.A., media notes and two journalist obit notes.
The daughter of former Vice President Walter Mondale died of brain cancer.
Back in May, New York Times bureau chief Adam Nagourney wrote about Lewis Brown, a homeless former star for Verbum Dei and UNLV who roamed the streets of Hollywood.
Robertson, an Oscar-winning actor whose credits span "Picnic" (1955) and "Spider-Man 3" (2007), died Saturday on Long Island at age 88.
Newcomb installed the first ski lift in Southern California, at Mt. Waterman.
Former Kings forward Pavol Demitra and former Ducks defenseman Ruslan Salei.were believed to be on the plane.
Councilman Jose Huizar tweeted tonight that Ezat Delijani, a leader in L.A.'s Persian Jewish community, died yesterday. No other details are immediately available.
Villaraigosa woos Hollywood, Feinstein doubts the subway money is there, S.A. Griffin and the Times on Scott Wannberg, CBS web writers sign a guild deal and most ridiculous parking sign ever?
Anyone who lived on the Westside of LA in the 80’s and 90’s and who read books knew Scott Wannberg, says Richard Rushfield.
Bad day for legendary songwriting teams. Nick Ashford, a prolific writer of hits for Motown with his partner and later wife Valerie Simpson, died in New York City.
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller met in Los Angeles in 1950 and teamed up to write dozens of early rock and roll hits, including many for Elvis Presley. Leiber died today at Cedars-Sinai.
Scott Wannberg, a member of the traveling poet troupe known as the “Carma Bums” and a 23-year employee of the late Dutton's Brentwood Books, died Friday of an apparent heart attack in his recent hometown of Florence, Oregon.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa goes with the end-of-an-era theme.
Edie Wasserman was called the first lady of Hollywood and with her late husband, the studio powerhouse Lew Wasserman, was a major donor to local institutions. She died today in...
A stadium endorsement, Howard Berman vs. Brad Sherman, Rainey on Schwada, Ross Porter gets a gig and more media and politics notes.
No official word on cause of death, but police believe it was natural causes.
Authorities are investigating Hideki Irabu's death as an apparent suicide and hanging.
The body of Ramos, the former L.A. Times staff writer and editor, was found in his Morro Bay home after he did not respond to calls from colleagues at CalCoastNews.com.
Chuck Manatt was co-founder in Los Angeles of the law firm now called Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and served as national (and California) chairman of the Democratic Party and co-chair of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for president. Manatt died Friday night at a Richmond, Va., hospital of complications from a stroke.
The British soul singer with a drug and alcohol problem was found dead in her London apartment on Saturday afternoon local time. An autopsy is pending.
City Council hopefuls get a date, Garcetti gets an NYT story, Cenk Uygur gets mad and Katzenberg says the movies "suck." Plus more.
New deputy mayor, new library hours, a new rainbow for Sony and a vote for Bill Simmons' Grantland.
"Born of the motorcycle and hot rod culture of Burbank California in the early 1970s, the Travis Bean guitar was fused from gear head sensibility and rock and roll creativity," says a website.
Television writer and producer created Gilligan and "The Brady Bunch," TV sitcom milestones from the 1960s that remain popular in syndication.
She was the mother of political writer and former U.S. Senate candidate Mickey Kaus and the widow of the late California Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus.
Ramona Hahn, the mother of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Superior Court Judge James Hahn, the former mayor, died today.
The author and granddaughter of one of Los Angeles' most discussed historical figures, the water legend William Mulholland, died today of natural causes at her home in Camarillo.
Jean Harris. a former Deputy Mayor of San Francisco and an icon of the lesbian political community in California, died Sunday in Palm Springs.
Topics include L.A.'s children's museum, LudoBites, Westside Pavilion parking, the 405, Los Angeles magazine and more.
California Republicans favor Mitt Romney so far, Villaraigosa takes a stand on wars, LAT backs AEG's stadium, plus more politics and media notes from the weekend.
Clemons, a beloved member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1972, couldn't survive the massive stroke he suffered a week ago. He died Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida.
Lawrence Wayne Fischer, known for a long time as Wild Man, was a musical partner of Frank Zappa until the two had a falling out, and the "spiritual godfather" of Rhino Records.
Carl Gardner was singing in the Los Angeles R&B group The Robins in 1955 when he and other musicians formed The Coasters, the first vocal group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Tonight's weekly column features obits: Laura Ziskin, Joan Luther, Allen Levy.
Ziskin died at home tonight after a long and public battle with breast cancer.
Levy was working for CBS Newspath out of Los Angeles covering the Arizona wildfires when he failed to show up this morning to produce a live shot for "The Early Show." He was found dead in his hotel room, apparently of natural causes.
Joan Luther, called by some the first lady of restaurant PR in Los Angeles, died yesterday.
Andrew Gold, who died Friday at home in Encino, had serious roots in the Los Angeles music scene. His father, Ernest Gold, won an Oscar for his score on the...
Mayor names new DOT head, stadium suspect stays in custody, Greuel on TV, James Arness dies and more.
John Edwards indicted, Jack Kevorkian dies, Tim Leiweke threatens, Hector Tobar columnizes, Denise Hamilton reviews and more.
Elmer G. "Geronimo" Pratt, the former Los Angeles Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison before his 1972 murder conviction was overturned, died today in a small village in Tanzania.
Matt Fong, a Republican who served as California's elected Treasurer for a term in the 1990s, died today of skin cancer at home in Pasadena.
Gil Scott-Heron, Jeff Conaway, Margo Dydek, Irene Gilbert, Don Kubly, Dana Brand, Tom West.
At the end of the news at 11, Channel 2 anchor Pat Harvey's voice was thick with emotion as she announced the unexpected death of colleague James Kang.
Andrew Garton, 44, a seven-year veteran of the Hawthorne Police Department, was escorting the procession for Manhattan Beach officer Mark Vasquez when his motorcycle was involved in a crash with another officer.
Stuart worked in episodic television during almost the entire run of the genre, starting with "I Led Three Lives" in 1954 and concluding with the Showtime series "Huff" in 2006.
A quick roundup this morning.
Laurents wrote the books for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy" and the screenplay (from his own novel) for "The Way We Were."
Denise Hamilton's Native Intelligence tribute to the late journalist Terry McGarry will air this weekend on KPCC's Off-Ramp, noon Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday. Off-Ramp blog Police are preparing...
A round-up of news, politics and media notes and other observations to get the week started.
We have Eldon Davis to thank for many of those Googie-style coffee shops that sprouted along Southern California boulevards in the 1950s, then spread across the country.
Bluegrass legend Hazel Dickens used her music to tell people about the plight of coal miners and working women in the South, and inspired the work of Emmylou Harris and others.
Davis and her writing partner Bob Carroll Jr. were writing for Lucille Ball on radio when they collaborated on a TV pilot. The rest was television history. Also: Kevin Jarre.
A year later in the Gulf, Bell's whistleblower, Villaraigosa's budget, when Obama moved to Indonesia and Grete Waitz.
Geoff Miller was the first editor of Los Angeles, starting in 1960 when it was called The Prompter, and in 1990 became the magazine's publisher. He died Saturday at home in L.A.
No Dodger Stadium arrests, Trutanich endorses Hahn, former Daily News editor dies and public radio stations raise money for Japan. Plus more.
The son of Grouch Marx, he's known mostly for two books on his dad, sitcom work and the unauthorized and unflattering biography of Bob Hope.
Sidney Harman died last night in Washington of complications from acute myeloid leukemia, a disease he was diagnosed with a month ago.
Kam Kuwata, a Democratic campaign strategist in California for at least 25 years, was found dead in his Venice condo Monday.
Sidney Lumet debuted in 1957 with "12 Angry Men," directed "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico" and "Network" later in his career, and was nominated four times for Oscars.
BNill Boyarsky remembers the founder of the Los Angeles Tribune.
Veteran L.A. journalist and author Al Martinez has been keeping readers up to date on his daughter Cinthia's cancer in his Daily News columns.
Smithsonian withdraws bid for historic murals, LAUSD's Deasy won't take $55,000 raise, a City Hall exit, art and books notes and a local media obituary.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist "rose to fame for his plays that explored such themes as contemporary gay identity, youthful angst and modern anomie."
Taylor died early today of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She entered the hospital six weeks ago. Taylor won two best actress Oscars, for "Who's Afraid of Virginia...
Pat Casey, the former managing editor at Channel 2 in Los Angeles, died Saturday in Cincinnati after a year-long battle with brain cancer.
The Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration and longtime Los Angeles civic leader and Democratic politics figure died Friday at home of complications from bladder and kidney cancer,
The Long Beach-raised rap music star Nathaniel D. Hale, known in the music industry as Nate Dogg, died today, his family told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post often called the dean of the Washington press corps, died Wednesday in Arlington, Va. of complications from diabetes.
Satellite launch from Vandenberg fails, Trutanich dismisses charges against protesters, city campaign notes, NYT editor on L.A. radio and the last founding member of The Mattachine Society dies.
Rodney King day, more community college waste, DA Cooley promotes a key aide, rave review for "The Hollywood Sign" and more.
Jane Russell is probably best known as the busty actress whose cleavage Howard Hughes exploited so flagrantly in "The Outlaw." Her life story, though, runs through several other prominent Los Angeles threads.
Tulin was the bassist for the 1960s psychedelic garage band The Electric Prunes (formed in the Valley) and had been playing recently with the Smashing Pumkins and with Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan.
Jeremy Bernard, Darryl Morden, Cardinal Mahony and more.
Brown to get support of L.A. Chamber for taxes, Tom Campbell to run Chapman Law, Villaraigosa wants higher wall around Getty House, plus Charlie Sheen, Cardinal Mahony, Frank McCourt, Chris Erskine, "Glee" and more.
Politics and media notes, plus obituaries.
Glenn Allen had been with the Los Angeles Fire Department for 38 years and had been contemplating retirement. He died after noon today of injuries incurred while battling a house fire in the Hollywood Hills on Thursday.
Veteran firefighter battling for his life, Jerry West statue unveiled and the mayor's stadium committee meets.
Rebecca Wells, 51, was found slumped over on her desk in the L.A. County Department of Internal Services in Downey by a security guard on Saturday.
No knives at the Grammys, Patsaouras writing memoir, Saenz on short list for state Supreme Court and city election endorsements.
Lowriders from around the West caravanned through East Los Angeles on Saturday in a funeral procession for Jesse Valadez, co-founder 45 years ago of The Imperials car club. His red...
Media and politics notes from around L.A. and the web.
Downtown stadium, City Hall, Egypt and more.
Charles Brittin was a beat-era photographer whose best-known work captured Los Angeles and the avant-garde artists of the decades when the Ferus Gallery was big. His photos from the streets...
Long before Jack LaLanne became an infomercial pitchman, he was America's best-known health and fitness advocate.
Sargent Shriver, a close confidante of brother-in-law John F. Kennedy and first director of the Peace Corps, died today in Bethesda, Maryland. Also: Dale Fetherling, Tom Ferguson.
Jerry Brown, more Golden Globes reaction and fallout, showbiz numbers down, Regis Philbin retires, Dodgers add another cheap alternative and much more.
Kay Mills, the former Los Angeles Times editorial writer who authored five books, died Thursday at age 69.
Giffords prognosis improves, wounded deputy identified, AP and Shepard Fairey reach settlement over the Obama Hope poster, plus Mark Kriski and a bunch of media notes.
Sylvia Bursztyn created Sunday crossword puzzles for the Los Angeles Times for 30 years. She was found dead of natural causes in her Granada Hills home on Dec. 30, according...
"It's hard to imagine San Pedro without John Olguin," says City Councilwoman Janice Hahn. "He was like a grandfather to everyone."
Riordan to close two restaurants, Zine recuses over girlfriend, Yvonne Burke and Matt Toledo get state appointments and is Hollywood L.A. neighborhood of the year?
Joe Lumer is the name behind the Joe's Auto Parks lots so ubiquitous in Downtown Los Angeles.
Denis Dutton in 1998 created the well-read Arts & Letters Daily, which the New Yorker's Blake Eskin today calls "the first and foremost aggregator of well-written and well-argued book reviews, essays, and other articles in the realm of ideas. Denis was the intellectual’s Matt Drudge."
Oscar ballots go out, the falling murder rate, new execs at KCET and more.
The Kings' press box crowd is mourning the death of their friend Graig Woodburn, a Los Angeles attorney who by night covered the Kings and Ducks for the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Associated Press and The Sporting News.
Mike Tetreault was the longtime letters editor at the Daily News. He died last night after a long battle with cancer.
Carter, a longtime specialist in labor relations for the LAPD, was off-duty when his motorcycle collided with another bike Sunday on Santiago Canyon Road in Santa Ana. He was struck by a car and died at the scene.
Frank Emi worked in his family's Los Angeles market before being interned at the start of World II at Heart Mountain in Wyoming.
Various media are reporting that Elizabeth Edwards has died of complications from breast cancer.
Spirit Award nominations are out, Maxine Waters could face trial by the Republicans, Caruso expands again, Ryan Seacrest has a deal, Michael Douglas seeks to quash the rumors and the Dodgers sign Uribe.
Back from some holiday travel and going through the piles on my desk.
The Canadian actor who had a long dramatic career before he was cast in "Airplane!" and as LAPD Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies died near his home in Fort Lauderdale.
Jose Rodriguez, Harold Katz and Danny McDevitt.
LA's beach curfew, Ronni Chasen murder, redistricting panel, McCourts back before a judge, Villaraigosa to Mexico and a media person death. Plus more.
Jerry Brown at work, L.A. ballot measures, Katz resigns from high speed rail board and those new Lakers books by Jeanie Buss and Phil Jackson.
De Laurentiis died Wednesday at home in Beverly Hills. Not many Hollywood producers have this range of credits, both hits and flops.
Anderson was the first baseball manager to win World Series titles in both leagues, with the Reds and Tigers. He played ball at Dorsey High School.
Whitman and Brown donors are hedging their bets, the day's local campaign events, Brown denies he has tapped Gray Davis to run his transition, a possible new editor for Bon Appetit and and trouble again at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
Meg Whitman's bus pulled into the Burbank Marriott (after circling Bob Hope Airport) for a quick rally this afternoon before a few hundred supporters. Plus more notes.
Sheriff's watchdog won't investigate Baca's help for a donor, but wait until you see why. Plus women prefer Brown and Boxer, Whitman goes the litmus test route, Soros to help Prop. 19 and the county's new bike-commuting health director.
Guccione, the onetime New Jersey artist who gave the world Penthouse, the movie "Caligula" and the late Omni magazine, died Wednesday in Plano, Texas after a long battle with cancer.
City traffic officials promise there will be fewer jams with Friday's campaign visit by President Obama, plus more inside.
Cullins, 28, was a Marine reservist with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment in Marja, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. He was killed Monday by a roadside bomb.
Kholos began volunteering with Tom Bradley's campaign for mayor in 1969 and became the first press secretary after Bradley was elected in 1973.
Weekend campaigning in the state races, last day to register to vote, Yaroslavsky will only say he's thinking about a run for mayor, Neon Tommy on NPR and the new Hollywood Reporter website launches.
Brown and the death penalty, Whitman on KABC, Props. 23 and 26, lowest homicide rate since 1975, and rough sex in the Jewish Journal. More inside.
Taix ran the Taix French Restaurant in Echo Park, started Downtown by his father in 1927 and among the oldest family-owned restaurants in Los Angeles.
Frank Bourgholtzer was the first full time White House correspondent for NBC News and retired from the network's Los Angeles bureau.
Burke died Sunday on board a flight from Los Angeles that had landed at Amsterdam, where he was due to play a concert. His family — which includes 21 children, 90 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren — posted the news on his website.
Brown apologizes for underling's Whitman slur, she has now spent $121 million of her own money to become governor, an LAPD officer convicted, plus book and media notes.
Shumate, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Pete Wilson, was advising both Carly Fiorina and Steve Cooley in this year's election cycle.
Cannell wrote best-selling novels and for TV shows like "Adam-12" and "Mission Impossible," then went on to produce series such as ""The Rockford Files," "The A-Team" and "21 Jump Street." He died Thursday at home in Pasadena from complications associated with melanoma.
What the Whitman-housekeeper boomlet means, Whitman and Brown tied in another poll, the FBI and LAPD collaborate to solve a whole bunch of homicides, almost half don't pay their red-light camera tickets, plus one ex-councilman gets a job and another one passes on.
Tony Curtis starred opposite Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon in "Some Like it Hot" — which the American Film Institute named the best comedy of the 20th century.— and got an Oscar nomination for "The Defiant Ones."
Art Gilmore narrated hundreds of movie trailers, television episodes and radio shows. He also worked back in the day as a news announcer at KFWB and KNX.
Arthur Penn, the director of "Bonnie and Clyde," The Miracle Worker" and "Alice's Restaurant," died Tuesday in New York a day after turning 88.
The body of a hiker reported missing yesterday in Griffith Park has been located at the bottom of a ravine. Law-enforcement sources say it's Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino's editor on...
Patty Fox, a longtime media commentator on fashion and the former fashion director of Divine Design, died Sunday of ovarian canc
Buddy Collette, the legendary jazz musician and Los Angeles native who died here on Sunday at 89, "both profited from and contributed to the rich midcentury jazz scene along Los...
Bacon and Mann both made their names interviewing movie stars and other Hollywood celebrities.
Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere," a forthcoming film set mostly at the Chateau Marmont, won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. LAPD chief Charlie Beck said the...
For decades, Paul Conrad's cartoons in the Los Angeles Times were conversation starters, debate shapers and eyeball attractors. He was one of the paper's best known journalists, the one sure to draw the longest lines at book signings and other public appearances.
Ackerman, chairman of the Community Redevelopment Agency board of commissioners, died today of cancer.
A round-up from the weekend's email and media.
Obledo, a co-founder of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and sometimes called the "Godfather of the Latino Movement," was Gov. Jerry Brown's health and welfare secretary from 1975 to 1982.
You may remember last week's item on Edwards needing help for a medical airlift home from Denver. He got home to Santa Barbara and died there yesterday.
"Scar" Lopez co-founded Cannibal and the Headhunters at Lincoln High School, helping give birth to the distinctive Eastside sound.
Carolyn Jensen Chadwick, who died here yesterday, "created sound-rich, evocative stories that once defined the NPR listening experience," writes Current. org. She also was NPR's first employee and the husband of former host Alex Chadwick.
Dan Avey, a longtime KFWB anchor, co-host of the KABC morning show with Ken Minyard, professor at USC and Cal State Northridge and former radio voice of the Los Angeles Kings, died over the weekend at Cedars Sinai.
Chase, the author of several books on urbanism and Los Angeles, died Friday of an apparent heart attack. He was the godfather to the daughter of Frances Anderton, host of...
Wolper also produced "L.A. Confidential" and the children's classic "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," as well as the opening and closing ceremonies at the 1984 Olympic Games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Broadway theaters in WSJ, McCourts try to settle, Bell's $1.5 million city manager, Pau Gasol in scubs and more.
What Maxine Waters had to say, what Jerry Brown did say, what legal analysts are saying about the Prop. 8 ruling, Jack Shafer's advice on what Sidney Harman shouldn't say...
The president and partner of The Rogers Group died last night. Eric Moses, president of the Public Relations of Society L.A. chapter, has put out a nice statement to his board.
KCET's financial struggles, Prop. 8 ruling's timing, Tribune troubles redux, Tim Rutten on Anne Rice quitting the Christians, and will Los Angeles County cost the Democrats the election?
An important figure in the Los Angeles book world has died. Marylin Hudson co-founded
the legendary and long-running Round Table West book and author program.
Bobby Hebb, who wrote the 1966 hit "Sunny," died today in Nashville at age 72.
Greuel on a jury, Garcetti for Echo Park lake crackdown, Whitman's amazing spending, Lakers playoff tickets for lawmakers and more.
In the San Fernando Valley secession election in 2002, state Assemblyman Keith Richman received the most votes and would have become the first mayor of the newly formed sixth-most populous U.S. city if voters had allowed the split.
Eric Malnic was a longtime mainstay of the Los Angeles Times Metro staff, as an assistant city editor and rewrite man on big stories, and late in his career as the paper's specialist on airplane crashes.
Kevin Jolly, 45, left as superintendent of the Burbank schools a few weeks ago to take over a troubled school district in Mendocino County.
Schorr joined NPR as senior news analyst after being let go by CNN in 1985.
Gammon's first television credits were in the 1960s in westerns such as "The Wild, Wild West," "Bonanza" and "Gunsmoke" — though he also showed up on "Batman," "Charlie's Angels" and...
Whitman's investment in Mike Murphy's movie career, Andrew Malcolm's flakkery again, LAT staffers warned about tweets, Polanski's victim still wants it to end, White House press secretaries in town, an arts blog dies and a books blog begins. Plus more, inside.
Soon-Shiong buys up Brentwood, a Manson girl comes up for parole again, what to do about L.A.'s watering rules, the jury deliberates in Oscar Grant killing and an architecture obituary. Plus more as we return from the long holiday weekend.
Johnson had been battling brain cancer and underwent surgery in January. He died Tuesday evening at age 75.
The California Highway Patrol is confirming for media that Officer Ortiz died at 5:50 p.m.
Cardinal Mahony's deposition, the Obamas see the Getty, the City Council delays on Arizona, Gov. Schwarzenegger comes to the Press Club Awards, plus Joel Kotkin, Jeanie Buss, Glenn Beck and more.
Ernest Fleischmann, who died Sunday, ran the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra from 1969 to 1998.
After an All-Pro career in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams, Richter went on to run Riverside International Raceway and Auto Club Speedw
The Getty has just announced the death of James N. Wood, the institution's president and CEO.
Longtime political activist and Hollywood public relations strategist Stephen Rivers died Monday after a long battle with cancer.
Marvin Isley was the youngest member of the Isley Brothers — he came along in 1973 after his brothers had been performing since 1954.
Caffie Greene was part of a group of Watts mothers who became a formidable community force after the Watts riots in 1965, and a former deputy to Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.
I noticed quite an outpouring of grief and and surprise on Facebook from friends, labor activists and colleagues on today's death of John Delloro, reportedly of a heart attack.
UCLA's legendary coach dies of natural causes at age 99.
Joseph Strick brought James Joyce's "Ulysses" to the big screen, won an Oscar for his documentary on My Lai veterans, made noteworthy documentaries on L.A.'s Muscle Beach in 1948 and an L.A. divorcee's life in 1960, and also commissioned a Santa Monica Canyon home that is the only North American residence by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Friends of longtime Los Angeles journalist Jerry Clark are saying he died yesterday, possibly of a heart attack
On my trip to Bilbao in 2007, one of the more unforgettable visual aspects to the Guggenheim Museum (other than seeing a replica of Walt Disney Hall beside the xx river in Spain) was Louise Bourgeois' sculpture of a giant spider.
Dennis Hopper died this morning at home in Venice, likely from complications of advanced prostate cancer.
Coleman, the child star of the hit sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," died at a hospital in Provo, Utah after suffering a brain hemorrhage at home earlier this week.
Art Linkletter, who died today at home in Bel-Air, was a ubiquitous broadcast presence from the 1940s through the 1960s, and a voice and emcee at Los Angeles events for long after.
Sarah Ferguson and Bruce Beresford-Redman skulk into town, though not necessarily together. Plus a Monday assortment of media, politics and news notes.
An LAFD crew answering a 911 call pronounced screenwriter Simon Monjack dead at his home in the Hollywood Hills.
Lima died today at home in Los Angeles, reportedly of a heart attack. A native of the Dominican Republic, Lima won 89 games in thirteen seasons as a pitcher, including in 2004 the Dodgers' first port-season win in more than a decade.
Schwarzenegger's onus, Mozingo's series, neglected ponies, a chef in trouble with the law, the Lakers begin round three and a blogger's photo gets picked up. Plus the death of
Ronnie James Dio.
Tam Ngoc Tran of Orange County and Cinthya Felix of Los Angeles had been activists for the DREAM Act, the proposed law to grant citizenship to undocumented students like themselves.
New website for Sheriff Baca, boycotting Arizona, Jewish Journal up, Sarah Silverman down, and perhaps the last great newspaper novel.
Microsoft to convene in L.A., no Times endorsements for Whitman, Ponzer, Brown or Boxer, the return of Al Checchi and more bankruptcy talk from Dick Riordan.
Lena Horne was the first black performer signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio — MGM, for whom she appeared in “Panama Hattie” in 1942 — and by the end of World War II was being called the country's top black entertainer.
A public memorial for music critic Alan Rich has been set for Tuesday, May 25th in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School on Bunker Hill in Downtown
Max Palevsky sold Scientific Data Systems to Xerox in 1969 for $1 billion, then used his money to collect art and to finance liberal causes and campaigns, including those of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Tom Bradley for mayor.
Redgrave died last night after a lengthy fight against breast cancer.
Lopez, a name partner at Century City's Kleinberg Lopez Lange Cuddy & Klein, has represented Michael Jackson and members of the Eagles, and had been a producer on "Selena." He...
Mike Silverman was one of L.A.'s "realtors to the stars" before he retired in 2001. He used to say he got his start when when he sold Frank Sinatra's house...
Friends and admirers are passing around on line the news that longtime Los Angeles music critic Alan Rich died yesterday. He would have been about 85.
Alicia Parlette was diagnosed at 23 with a rare form of cancer in her hip and a breast. The copy editor's 17-part series in the San Francisco Chronicle under the Alicia's Story banner told of her experiences undergoing chemotherapy and coming to grips with her fate.
Gates was chief of police in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1992, his tenure ending shortly after the riots that followed the jury verdicts exonerating officers in the Rodney King...
Garfield High to name auditorium for Jaime Escalante, more on last night's DWP rates vote, big Bev Hills fundraiser for Meg Whitman, an anniversary for Larry Mantle and more.
Dixon was on the air in Los Angeles for a half century. He died March 13 at a rehabilitation facility in Burbank.
Jay Mathews used to be Los Angeles bureau chief of the Washington Post and now writes the paper's education blog. In 1988 he authored a biography of Garfield High teacher...
Friends of Jamie Escalante are reporting that the retired Garfield High School teacher died this afternoon in Reno, where he was seeking treatment for bladder cancer.
Robert J. Cottle, a member of the LAPD's SWAT unit, is the first active Los Angeles police officer to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Cottle, 45, was a Sergeant Major with a United States Marine Corps Reserve battalion from Camp Pendleton. He was in the Marja region on Wednesday when a roadside bomb killed him and another Marine.
Marshall had the inside access and the eye to shoot some of the most iconic images of rock and roll musicians
City Council asserts itself on the DWP rates, California's algebra experiment not working, The Standard pays for pouring pool chemicals down the drain, plus Meg Whitman, Jerry Brown, Lee Baca, Walter Karabian and more.
Baca goes right back at it after D.C. dustup, Whitman's spending, Jerry Brown's old apartment, LAist's owner close to sale and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards. Plus more, of course.
Ferber, the Hollywood Bowl's longtime production supervisor and special events manager, provided the voice that greeted concert-goers: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hollywood Bowl."
Fess Parker's first credit was in the 1950 film "Harvey," but he became widely known as Disney's Davy Crockett later that decade and as Daniel Boone. More recently Parker has...
The musician who began as the lead singer for the Box Tops in the 1960s died in New Orleans.
Graves was found dead Sunday at home in Pacific Palisades.
When the Rams were a big deal in Los Angeles, Olsen anchored their Fearsome Foursome defensive line. He went on to be longtime color commentator for NBC’s pro football and Rose Bowl telecasts, and a television actor on “Little House on the Prairie” and in his own series, “Father Murphy.”
Gavin Newsom chatter, Cooley calls out his deputies, National Magazine Award finalists, another AOL Patch in South Bay, the death of Corey Haim and more.
Willie Davis, the Dodgers centerfielder through most of the 1960s who came out of Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights, was found dead today at home in Burbank.
Sheriff Baca releases inmates early, Joel Grover goes after bogus disabled parking, Arnold and Maria get paid to promote California, editor hospitalized after meeting with New Times' Mike Lacey, and more...after the jump.
Raimund Abraham, a visiting faculty member at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, died in a Downtown crash hours after giving a lecture at the school.
I posted about Serchia in January, when I was introduced to his blog Thinking Positive, where he wrote with humor and insight about his life as a cancer and AIDS patient.
Villaraigosa wants another new fee on DWP customers, AP covers L.A's budget problems, Speaker Perez's influence issues, the Rafu Shimpo in big trouble and Ban Ki-moon comes to town.
Montalvo, an 11-year-veteran of the LAPD's Hollywood division, was the officer who died in an off-duty crash in Diamond Bar on Thursday.
The running back died at a hospital in Attleboro, Mass., on Tuesday. The cause of death has not been reported.
Los Angeles writer Mary Susan Herczog wrote first-person stories about her experiences with breast cancer in the L.A. Times during the late 1990s and again in 2002.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (at the home of attorney Bruce Broillet and his wife Norah) and Sen. Mark Warner are among the Democrats holding L.A. area fundraisers during the congressional recess.
City Councilman Herb Wesson's chief of staff died this morning in Las Vegas, where she had suffered an aneurysm while visiting a week ago, Wesson's spokesman announced this afternoon.
Blanchard opened the Hollywood agency that bore her name in 1961 and represented, among others, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Shari Belafonte, Rene Russo and Cristina Ferrare.
Wendy Greuel, Steve Bing, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Jonathan Gold and Laurie Ochoa, James Rainey and more.
Jay Leno slinks out of prime-time, expect the Hollywood sign to be covered with a banner, more City Council drama over the budget and more.
NBC makes Conan disappear online, feuding over Conrad Murray, the gay judge hearing the Prop. 8 case and plenty of politics notes for a Monday.
Bryant scored 44 tonight in Memphis to take over the franchise lead from West, but the Lakers lost by two.
Salinger died Wednesday at the home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. From the New York Times: Mr. Salinger’s literary reputation rests...
I have to wonder if the Times' near-total surrender of its award-winning tradition of covering a major local industry — cutting-edge science — helps explain why the New York Times beat the locals on the apparent suicide of a world-class Caltech scientist.
Couple of LAPD Metro officers busted, Prop. 8 testimony ends, why the mud didn't flow and how movie portrayals of female journalists are always so lame (Maggie Gyllenhaal edition.)
Zinn died today of a heart attack while traveling in Santa Monica.
More rain today, the inmate release plan kicks in, Inglewood's mayor pleads out and resigns, plus a couple of local obituaries — and more.
Day co-founded the Chiat-Day advertising agency. McCabe started McCabe's Guitar Shop, the Santa Monica landmark.
Bell had opened a few fast food chains around Southern California after World War II, starting with a rival to McDonald's in San Bernardino. He also started Der Wienerschnitzel, but...
Henck was known in the San Bernardino Mountains as the builder and manager of the Santa's Village amusement park in Skyforest, and as a keeper of the mountain communities' past.
Genser, in his third stint as mayor over 21 years on the Santa Monica City Council, had been ill since October and died on Saturday.
Everyone in the flamenco community in Los Angeles knew Ben Bradley made a wicked tortilla Espanola.
Channel 11's news at 10 p.m. opened tonight with five minutes of reporting and personal commentary about Rory Markas, the station's sportscaster who was discovered dead at home in Palmdale...
At least 2,500 people, and perhaps as many as 5,000, attended last night's event in the stadium at Mountain View High School for El Monte school board member Agustin Roberto...
Team spokesman Tim Mead says the voice of the Angels was found dead at his Palmdale home on Monday.
Tuohy won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1969 for his coverage of the Vietnam War for the Los Angeles Times.
He drew more than 3,800 caricatures and other pieces for the New York Review of Books.
If I were doing an end-of-year roundup of obits, Schiller would be in it. Her husband opened the Pink Pussycat in an old Hollywood jazz club on Santa Monica Boulevard,...
The actress died this morning of cardiac arrest at Cedars-Sinai, after being found in the shower at home by her mother, according to TMZ, citing reports from the LAFD and...
Getting rid of teachers who don't work out, the city's plans for Owens Lake and just how much Supervisor Molina meddled in the building of the Gold Line — plus...
Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt Disney and a director emeritus of the family studio, died Wednesday morning after battling stomach cancer. His name is on REDCAT downtown. Roundup of...
Larry Sultan, who died Sunday of cancer at his home up in Greenbrae, grew up in the San Fernando Valley and in 2004 came out with a large-format book called...
Krekorian goes back to Sacramento, Art Torres gets a raise, another reporter move at the Times and City Hall's beacon shone last night. More news and notes after the jump....
More excessive radiation from CT scans, delays on the Expo Line, surviving six months on a bus bench in the Valley, and voting ends today in the 2nd district —...
Looking at all the labor money in the CD 2 race, old LAPD riot helmets headed to Washington state, and artist Richard Ankrom's guerrilla freeway sign has been found. Plus...
Officer Aragon was off-duty when his motorcycle crashed around 2:15 a.m. at Fletcher Drive and Larga Avenue, according to the L.A. Times and CBS 2. He was pronounced dead at...
Retired Los Angeles Fire Department captain Jim Perry was killed today in a crash on U.S. 395 near Reno. Perry was well known to local media and was editor of...
Redondo Beach Police officer Ken Greenleaf had to make the tough call yesterday and put down his dog. Valor, a 5-year-old black-and-gray German shepherd, had been in the hospital with...
Schwarzenegger years labeled a disappointment, a newspaper calls for getting rid of the lieutenant governor, and you can now get Reagan on your iPhone. Plus more after the jump. Quick...
Sportswriter Scott French was at the World Cup match in Pasadena in 1994 where Mike Penner first discovered soccer. The late L.A. Times sports writer bought a ball, started kicking...
Unofficial word from a former Del-Fi employee on Facebook is that Bob Keane, the record producer who signed Ritchie Valens out of Pacoima in 1958, died over the weekend. Keane...
Kevin Bronson, the music writer formerly with the L.A. Times, remembers Mike Penner for more than his sports writing or his sexuality. They bonded over rock and roll. Penner was...
Sad news at the Los Angeles Times website about one of their own. Mike Penner, the veteran sportswriter who in 2007 and '08 was known publicly as Christine Daniels, was...
News is spreading fast via email and Facebook that Avery Clayton died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving. He was an artist and executive director of Western States Black Research...
Author and Jewish Journal book editor Jonathan Kirsch blogs that his "very first experiment in the deconstruction and interpretation of sexual imagery" took place when, as a child, he found...
Quick roundup for getaway day: Roman Polanski was granted bail and possibly house arrest in Switzerland, but an appeal is pending. L.A. Now Pot dispensaries could continue to accept cash...
Color commentary all around on yesterday's LAPD brass shake-up, Schwarzenegger parks in the red, Sarah Palin and Latinos and Supervisor Ridley-Thomas dodges the media. Those and more after the jump....
Beck's popular first order, Leiweke calls Trutanich's bluff, what it's like to be 33, gay and a deputy mayor, and the LAT's Rainey weighs in on Ruth Seymour. Plus a...
Beck's confirmation vote, Villaraigosa gets a Thai massage, Broad still talking museum with Beverly Hills and much, much more in today's catch-up buzz. Tucked neatly after the jump,. as usual....
LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky was a friend of the late Doug Ring and describes his role in preparing Bill to be an effective ethics commissioner in City Hall, and...
From the mayor's office: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued the following statement regarding the death of Douglas R. Ring: “I am deeply saddened by the death of my friend Doug Ring,...
Developer, lawyer and philanthropist Doug Ring was discovered at the Brentwood home he shares with his wife, former City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, the L.A. Times' news blog says. Ring and...
Back from the holiday with a reading of the Jerry Brown tapes, a conspiracy theory about Charlie Beck, big layoffs at Current TV in L.A. and more after the jump...
West Hollywood City Councilmember Jeff Prang announced the death of his former deputy this morning. Karen Ocamb has more....
More on that secret taping of reporters by a Jerry Brown aide, Beck moves forward and the City Council is gone to Texas. Plus more, of course, after the jump....
More analysis of Charlie Beck, plus the state's big water deal, blacks and pot in Pasadena, Andrew Breitbart and more after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at...
Bad circulation numbers for the L.A. Times, the mayor steps out with Lu Parker, new controversy around David Lizarraga and a media apology — plus more after the jump, of...
Born Milton Supman, Soupy Sales became one of the enduring comic faces of 1950s and '60s television. His show, first in Detroit then in Los Angeles, was a hit with...
Friends and family of the late philanthropist and civic leader Nancy Daly heard heaps of praise last night at a memorial gathering in UCLA's Royce Hall. Times columnist Patt Morrison,...
Jack Nelson led the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau during much of the time that the paper's reputation for national reporting was growing, and before that was known for his...
Blogger offers three finalists for LAPD chief, Polanski staying put and more. After the jump....
Falcon and the snow job, interviewing begins for LAPD chief and more news and notes after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and...
Anschutz, Schwarzenegger, Nahai and more, after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Former president Bill Clinton wrote this week that "Lili Smith was a beautiful girl...taken from her family and friends far too soon." Smith is the daughter of political consultant Ace...
When Brendan Mullen came to Portland last year for a book event at Powell's, Nancy Rommelmann threw a party and introduced him around. She remembers her friend, who passed away...
Brendan Mullen, author and the founder in 1977 of local punk rock club the Masque, died today after suffering a stroke while celebrating his birthday on the road with his...
The iconic fashion and portrait photographer — most notably for Vogue — died this morning at his home in Manhattan. His death was announced by Peter MacGill, his friend and...
Clinton in town to endorse Newsom, H1N1 vaccine is coming and Adam Carolla's podcast, plus the return of Frosty, Heidi and Frank to the airwaves. Those and more are below...
Nancy Daly, who helped found United Friends of the Children after being disturbed by what she saw at MacLaren Children's Center, died of pancreatic cancer while riding back to Los...
The New York Times columnist of three decades died today of pancreatic cancer at a hospice. Safire had been a speech writer for President Richard Nixon and an influential conservative...
In the morning news: a couple of local genius grant winners, a big gang raid, voting in the Valley and a bunch more notes. Also see Mark Lacter morning headlines...
The star of "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" had been battling pancreatic cancer. He was 57. (AP)...
Pang is the Newport Beach financier accused by federal regulators of a massive fraud in which millions of dollars were re-directed for his personal use. He had been taken from...
Here's an extended excerpt from a series of interviews he did in 1998 for the Archive of American Television. He talks about working with Bob Hope, Carl Reiner, Sid...
One of the greatest comedy writers - ever. He's probably best known for the TV series "MASH," but there also was "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the...
Gertrude Baines was 115, the world's oldest person. She died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital. Baines was a native of Shellman, Ga., and her father was believed to...
It's the 8-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and while the memorial at Ground Zero remains mired in money woes and petty (are there any other kind?) politics,...
The long-time education writer at the LAT was 80. From the Times obit: At The Times, where he was a reporter for nearly 30 years starting in 1964, Trombley was...
Army Archerd was a Variety columnist for 52 years, a fixture on the red carpet and at Hollywood parties — and he liked to say that his style made him...
The two firefighters killed in a vehicle accident Sunday on Mount Gleason above Acton were identified by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Tedmund Hall, who lived in San Bernardino...
Steve Greenberg's take on the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. See more by Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
For those who keep score, we have our third newsworthy passing of the last 24 hours. Greenwich collaborated with Phil Spector and Jeff Barry on a bunch of hit songs...
Dunne is the father of actor Griffin Dunne and wrote extensively about the Los Angeles murder of his daughter, the actress Dominique Dunne. He also wrote best-selling books and produced...
Add Cardinal Roger Mahony to the legions releasing official condolences and praise on last night's death of Sen. Edward Kennedy. From the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: Cardinal Roger M. Mahony...
Mark's mother Helen Lacter passed away Tuesday evening in Plantation, FL. She was 96. Posting at LA Biz Observed will be intermittent over the next week or so while Mark...
The New York Times obituary says Hewitt "changed the course of broadcast news by creating the television magazine '60 Minutes,' fusing journalism and show business as never before, and who...
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Donna Myrow, the founder and publisher of LA Youth, met the novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg soon after he launched the Watts Writers Workshop following the 1965 riots. He became...
"It’s safe to say that rock and roll as we know it would not exist without his invention," says the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That invention? The solid-body...
The president of Phoenix Books in Beverly Hills was 65. He died of cancer over the weekend. Viner has published or tried to publish several controversial books, including in 2003...
Today's news and notes, hidden after the jump, were delayed by a computer crash. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin...
Today's Buzz is tucked away after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
The screenwriter and director known for the films "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" among others died today while walking in Manhattan. A...
Today's news and notes are after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
News and notes are hidden after the jump. Also see today's Mark Lacter morning headlines at LA Biz Observed, and follow Mark and Kevin on Twitter....
Some week-starting news and notes for today are after the jump. For a quick look back at the past week at LA Observed, click here. Also see today's Mark Lacter...
City Council President Eric Garcetti grabs Wendy Greuel's old suite on the fourth floor where they keep the elected inmates. Same square footage but more windows, says Rick Orlov at...
The daughter of Los Angeles journalist Greg Burk and Southwestern Law adjunct professor Deborah Drooz was found slain this morning in her car near Alameda and Fourth Street downtown. A...
The best-selling writer of gay black fiction fell ill yesterday at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. He lived in Atlanta. LAT...
Whoa, the news and notes run a bit long today — that's what happens when you take the night off. The buzz is after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's...
News, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Nice photograph by Juergen Nogai of Julius Shulman at John Lautner's Chemosphere house. Nogai, Frank Gehry, Dion Neutra and others, including Shulman himself, talk during a radio documentary on the...
Media sites are saying that the longtime CBS News anchor has died, according to his family. Cronkite announcing the assassination of President John Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963:...
In today's LA Observed segment on KCRW, I honor Julius Shulman as a foremost chronicler and interpreter of Los Angeles and get personal on behalf of my wife, who has...
Julius Shulman, the dean of Los Angeles photographers, died Wednesday at home in Laurel Canyon. He was 98 years old. “He led a charmed life right up to the...
Quick first read of the day's news and notes is after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
A quick first look at today's items on politics and the city, with a media obit. Inside after the jump....
The real estate developer who may have had a hand in 100,000 new homes was a condo and strip mall pioneer in Southern California and built office towers in Century...
Cynthia Littleton at Variety reports that Brennan, a longtime reporter and editor for The Hollywood Reporter, died today at Cedars-Sinai after a yearlong struggle with cancer. "He was my friend,...
Levin was a familiar sight around the Westside signing up voters — which Bob Pool at the Times says she did six days a week for 36 years. Levin's son...
Today's Michael Jackson mourners in Hollywood are able to get to his actual Walk of Fame star instead of radio host Jackson's star, where they gathered yesterday. Gatherings also...
Jackson died this afternoon at UCLA Medical Center after suffering cardiac arrest at home in Holmby Hills, the Los Angeles Times and TMZ are reporting. Jackson is survived by his...
Farrah Fawcett died at 9:28 AM at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, according to TMZ. Ryan O'Neal and Alana Stewart were at her bedside....
Mayor Villaraigosa plans to appear on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" at 1 p.m. PDT and make some kind of statement about his plans on running for...
Nic Fiore taught skiing at Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park for more than 50 years, but Scott McAuley of Angel City Press remembers his friend as the summer impresario...
Sheryl Flowers was the executive producer of Tavis Smiley's shows on National Public Radio and Public Radio International and his Director of Communications. "When I left NPR, Sheryl was the...
Cardinal Mahony wagers a case of wine on the Lakers, a councilman resigns in disgrace, David Carradine is found hanged and more, including the local gay Asian-American mayor. Mark Lacter's...
Wow, it's June already. Today's Morning Buzz has much talk about Antonio Villaraigosa and his intentions, more questioning of the Los Angeles magazine failure cover, plus some other politics and...
Gov. Schwarzenegger proposed cutting deeply into health and welfare, letting non-violent felons out of prison a year early and closing most state parks as a start on closing the...
Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein says he'll miss the occasional calls from the longtime publicist, "one of the last remaining links to the Damon Runyon-esque era where you could...
Solters at various times represented Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson and other celebrity clients, says Nikki Finke. She reports that Solters died in his sleep at home, and gets...
Former Speaker Willie Brown says Sacramento is in "total panic" believing the tax props will lose on Tuesday's ballot, and he blames years of bad decisions by the governor...
The Daily Breeze education reporter died Friday night after being taken off life support with his family by his side. Here's the Daily Breeze story and blog post by his...
This cartoon was created by Steve Greenberg several weeks ago when the Los Angeles City Council was still debating whether to finish the elephant enclosure at the L.A. Zoo....
The celebrity news site says that the comic actor died in his sleep last night at a Los Angeles hospital. TMZ The French Mistake scene in "Blazing Saddles" with DeLuise...
That Long Beach State student and two other L.A. County residents are confirmed cases of the new H1N1 or swine flu. More local cases are expected, but the outbreak appears...
At least seven May Day marches are scheduled today around L.A., including four in Downtown. LAT, DN Only 14 percent of registered voters approve of the California Legislature's performance,...
A Mexican child who died in Texas [fixed] is the first confirmed U.S. death from swine flu, and a Marine at Twentynine Palms may have swine flu and has...
The longtime sports beat byline for the Examiner, Herald Examiner and L.A. Times died Monday at home in Baldwin Hills of age-related causes. Oates served on the original pro football...
Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman caused a stir Sunday night at Disney Hall by announcing from the stage it would be his last U.S. performance because of the nation's military...
Menza, the circulation director of the LA Weekly, died last night after battling cancer. Steven Mikulan, speaking for the staff in a story on the Weekly website, says the news...
Longtime Los Angeles Times journalist Annette Haddad has died of cancer. Here's the newsroom announcement by editor Russ Stanton: From: Stanton, RussSent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:57 AMTo: yyeditallSubject: Annette...
Gustkey's byline appeared in the L.A. Times sports section for more than three decades, most notably on stories about boxing, the outdoors and the WNBA. "He was a sports editor's...
The Los Angeles pop culture photographer died last night, according to several websites. SuperTouch, Daily Swarm, ThaIndian News...
West Hollywood mayor Jeffrey Prang announced the death of the city's long-serving councilman, and one of the oldest elected officials in the state. From Prang's statement: He died peacefully this...
Taplin, who was involved with the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council from its inception in 2002, was killed Tuesday in a freeway car accident. Blogdowntown says that Taplin and her...
Jerry Gillam covered California government and politics for 40 years, most of that time in the Sacramento bureau of the Los Angeles Times. He left the Times in 1995. Gillam...
A memorial service is scheduled Tuesday for the baby of Heather and Mike Spohr, who live in Brentwood. Maddie, as she is known to many across the blogosphere, was born...
The team released a statement on the death of pitcher Nick Adenhart, and a statement from his family. Tonight's game was cancelled at the family's request. KPCC's Steve Julian talks...
Dan Miller anchored at Channel 2 in the 1980s and was the sidekick on Pat Sajak's late-night show, as well as a frequent guest host for Tom Snyder on radio....
The rookie started last night, then was among three people in a Mitsubishi who died when a red-light runner hit the car in Fullerton. Adenhart, who was 22, threw six...
Over two and a half decades, Steve Plesa was the Orange County Register's features editor, cities editor and special sections editor overseeing coverage for the Food, Travel and Home &...
Mayor Villaraigosa told city unions that to avoid layoffs, workers need to defer raises, cut work hours and pay more for retirement benefits. The Times editorialized for the plan....
Mayor Villaraigosa has called an 11 a.m. news conference to announce steps to avert thousands of city layoffs. "The City currently faces a Fiscal Year 2009-10 deficit of $530...
L.A. Times writer Thomas Curwen's and photographer Allen J. Schaben's series on Ana Rodarte, 3½ years in the making, has award contender all over it: "Ana Rodarte had given...
Sommer died in a trauma helicopter en route to UCLA after being hit by a car in an Agoura Hills parking lot last week. His mother Ann, 98, also suffered...
Steven Bach was the executive at United Artists who took the fall for "Heaven’s Gate" and went on to write "Final Cut," which William Grimes in the New York Times...
Jarre won Oscars for the scores of "Lawrence of Arabia," " Doctor Zhivago" and "A Passage to India," and composed music for more than 150 other films. He died in...
Briggs was known around Los Angeles police headquarters at Parker Center as Dr. Dave, Minister of Leather. He shined shoes in the lobby for 21 years and on Monday he...
Mary Anne Dolan was hired at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner by Jim Bellows and followed him as editor. Below are her remarks at last Friday's memorial service for Bellows,...
The British-born actress, 45, is survived by her husband Liam Neeson, mother Vanessa Redgrave, sister Joely Richardson, aunt Lynn Redgrave and two children. Richardson won a Tony in 1998 as...
James Caughey "Coy" Watson, Jr. was the eldest of the Watson offspring — six boys and three girls — who made a mark in Los Angeles first as child actors,...
Friends of the late jazz and fashion photographer William Claxton are gathering this evening at LACMA's Bing Theater to celebrate his life. Scheduled speakers include his wife, the actress and...
Silver had been undergoing treatment for esophageal cancer for two years. He died today at home in New York. Silver won a best actor Tony in 1988 for "Speed-the-Plow" and...
Hedges died Tuesday morning at home in South Pasadena of melanoma. He was 57. He was a leading Hollywood lawyer and also made a name for himself as an archaeologist....
I haven't gotten to all the Jim Bellows appreciatons that have been posted or published, but today's by columnist Jon Carroll in the San Francisco Chronicle is a bit different...
Bellows died Friday at a nursing home in Santa Monica after suffering from Alzheimer's. He had been an editor in New York, then the overseer of the features sections at...
Nothing posted yet at the Los Angeles Police Department newsroom or blog, but the officers' union has issued a statement mourning the death at home this morning of South bureau...
Celeste Fremon writes at Witness LA that Ridgway, a supervising deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County, "changedand in many cases, savedmore lives than anyone can adequately count." Ridgway died...
Soto, who left office last year after missing significant amounts of time in Sacramento due to illness, apparently died today. She was at least 82. A statement from Speaker Karen...
Architectural photographer Marvin Rand was 84 when he died on Feb. 14. Along Abbot Kinney Boulevard, where he kept his studio, Rand is being called one of them — a...
Is Kenneth Turan rebutting critics within the L.A. Times in his column praising the revamped Oscars show? Patrick Goldstein and Mary McNamara go unnamed by him, but readers reject...
Senate Republicans dumped their leader overnight because he dared to support the Democrats' plan for ending the embarrassment in Sacramento. LAT, Bee, APPlus: Gov. Schwarzenegger returns to Los Angeles....
James Whitmore, the award-winning actor who died of lung cancer on Feb. 6, wanted to be wakened to see the inauguration of Barack Obama. He wasn't always lucid by then,...
Estelle Bennett, original Ronette and sister of Ronnie Spector, died this week at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 67. They're forever young on YouTube, especially in the...
The Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor died today at home in Malibu. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer a week before Thanksgiving, said his son Steve Whitmore, a Los...
Tim Rutten suggests an anti-trust exemption to let newspapers collude on charging for web content. LAT Op-Ed A string of street robberies and attacks in Silver Lake and environs...
The Culver City Police Department is mourning the death of Sgt. Curt Massey in this morning's wrong-way crash on the Santa Monica Freeway. He was a 17-year veteran and recipient...
Brady did the celebrity profiles for Parade magazine for nearly 25 years — his last, of actor Kevin Bacon, runs February 15. Before that he was a Washington reporter for...
Business writer Jennifer Pendleton died yesterday after a fifteen-month battle with cancer, according to a friend. Pendleton specialized in advertising, entertainment and entrepreneurship and her work appeared in Fortune, Essence,...
John Updike released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s. He won two Pulitzer Prizes, for ''Rabbit Is Rich'' and ''Rabbit at Rest,'' two National...
Because the desk is flowing over, and I have a few minutes... Film critic John Anderson repeatedly punched veteran publicist Jeff Dowd over a disagreement at Sundance about "Dirt! The...
An airline pilot uses his 40 years experience to bring his stricken jetliner down safely in the Hudson River, and the governor of New York dismisses it as "a...
City Council President Eric Garcetti announced this morning that actor Ricardo Montalbn died today at home in his district, surrounded by family. Montalban was 88, according to Garcetti, who made...
LAFD inspector Dennis Archie was arrested and accused of taking a $500 bribe from a board and care facility operator. L.A. Now So-called moderates on the Screen Actors Guild...
If anyone remembers the 2009 Golden Globes, it will be for "Slumdog Millionaire" and Kate Winslet. Variety, NYT, LAT, winners list "It's a completely meaningless awards show by a...
Santa Ana winds are back and the National Weather Service issued a red flag warning effective from noon today until 4 p.m. Sunday. Wires Mayor Villaraigosa's pro-Israel comments have...
The son of former LAPD spokesman and Fox 11 reporter Rod Bernsen died of cancer. The family suggests donations be made to the Memorial Hospital Cancer Center's Circle of Hope,...
The city of Santa Monica website says that Katz, a member of the City Council, died today with family and close friends by his side. The family appreciates everyones prayers...
Some top LAPD officials pushed hard, but unsuccessfully, to get the coroner to change the finding that a SWAT bullet killed 19-month-old Suzie Pea in 2005. LAT, Witness LA...
The longtime L.A. music critic blogs about this week's death and the legacy of arts patron Betty Freeman. (Here's my news post from yesterday.) Rich: She insisted on facing death...
Variety reports that Ned Tanen, who served as president of Universal and Paramount and produced three popular "Brat Pack" films in the 1980s, died today in Santa Monica. He was...
Betty Freeman, who died at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday, was a leading patron of the arts and new music. That's her in David Hockney's Beverly Hills Housewife,...
Gene Parrish was from 1984 to 1996 a host and producer on classical music station KUSC-FM. Its website says that Parrish passed away after a long illness and most recently...
Goldman died today of pancreatic cancer, a disease that was just recently diagnosed. He leaves two teenage sons. As I posted earlier today, Goldman and staffers at the Sunset Strip...
Noting the deaths of prominent, newsworthy or interesting Los Angeles figures and of LA Observed's colleagues in the media is a regular thing we do here. There seems to be...
Bob Benoit, photographer Mr. Blackwell, fashion figure Manuel Bogran, Breeze carrier Bernie Boston, photographer P.J. Corkery, editor Elmer Dills, TV restaurant critic Bill Drake, radio executive Clay Felker, editor...
Art Aragon, boxer Buzzie Bavasi, baseball man John Buttera, hot rodder Billy Consolo, player Dock Ellis, pitcher Craig Fertig, USC star Georgia Frontiere, owner Ed Justice Sr., motors Pete...
Ron Boltz, announcer Bernie Brillstein, manager Bud Browne, filmmaker George Carlin, comedian Warren Cowan, publicist Gene Evans, fireworks showman Johnny Grant, honorary mayor Charlton Heston, actor Bobbi Holtzman, director...
Forrest J Ackerman, archivist Tina Allen, artist Arthur C. Clarke, author Philip Conisbee, curator Michael Crichton, author Bo Diddley, rocker Elaine Dundy, author Patricia Faure, art dealer Robert Graham,...
Randal Simmons, LAPD SWAT "It wasn't until I saw the 10 o'clock news that I fully appreciated how many people lined Vermont and Slauson to greet the procession escorting...
Jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who played with John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock and other legends, died today at Sherman Oaks Hospital. He was 70 and had suffered a heart...
The Venice sculptor Robert Graham died Saturday at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center after being ill for six months. Born in Mexico City on Aug. 19, 1938, Graham moved to...
Arthur Spiegelman, called by Reuters one of the wire's "finest writers and longest-serving correspondents," died at home in Los Angeles on Saturday. He was 68. From the Reuters story: He...
The former FBI official who secretly confirmed reporting by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward during the Watergate scandal of the Nixon Administration died Thursday afternoon up in Santa Rosa. From...
Officer Sanders was killed this morning on the eastbound 60 Freeway in Hacienda Heights when struck by a car while he was tending to a traffic accident. Sanders leaves a...
Page never recovered from the heart attack she suffered earlier this month and died today in Los Angeles. Louis Sahagun in the LAT: Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with...
Here's how AP announces the news: Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with...
There was a big turnout Sunday outside Chabad House in Westwood for a memorial to Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, who were killed in the Mumbai attacks....
The wife of the late Tom Bradley died of pneumonia today at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center. She lived for many years in the View Park neighborhood after...
As general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers from 1972 to 1976, Pete Newell made the trade that brought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Milwaukee Bucks. Newell's mark on basketball also...
Jay Fiondella moved to Los Angeles to act, roomed with Leonard Nimoy, and opened Chez Jay near the beach in Santa Monica in 1959. It became a showbiz hangout for...
The author and creator of "ER" died yesterday in Los Angeles "after a courageous and private battle against cancer," his website announced. His books included "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost...
You've got to hear Peruvian-born singer Yma Sumac go from baritone to super high notes in this clip from last night's report on NPR's All Things Considered. Sumac was a...
Word from Sacramento is that Bill Stall, the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer-winning editorial writer, died today after suffering from emphysema. The Times is working on an obituary, and colleague Karin...
The Chicago Tribune summarizes Studs Terkel as "author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol." He died today at home there, with his book scheduled for release next month, "P.S. Further Thoughts From...
Delmar Watson came from a family of nine children that supplied kids to the movies — he was in more than 300 during his youth — and later became a...
Deanne Stillman posts at Native Intelligence about Tony Hillerman, her former professor who died yesterday and who provided inspiration for her own writing about the West. I can't remember any...
Tony Hillerman introduced readers to the Navajo culture of the Southwest through his series of mystery novels centered on Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn and officer Jim Chee. Hillerman...
An item in last Wednesday's Morning Buzz out of the paid obits in the Times mentioned the passing of Marie Dey, who was 107 and worked at Douglas Aircraft during...
Patricia Faure ran the gallery that bore her name at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, and other notable Los Angeles galleries before that: Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Asher/Faure Gallery. Times art...
Richard Blackwell was an obscure dress designer who became a media star of sorts after issuing his celebrity worst-dressed list starting in 1960. He died Sunday of complications from an...
Carmen Rocha waited tables at the original El Cholo on Western Avenue for nearly four decades and in El Cholo lore gets credit for introducing patrons to nachos. From Mary...
The current president of Heal the Bay posted a personal tribute to the death earlier today of the organization's founder and inspiration. Mark Gold calls his blog post "the passing...
Heal the Bay founder Dorothy Green has passed away, according to a release from Mayor Antonio Villarigosa's office. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued the following statement today on the passing of...
A friend of longtime Los Angeles sportscaster Gil Stratton emailed the news that Stratton died this morning at home in Toluca Lake. He was 86 and had suffered heart problems....
Another familiar figure from 1950s and '60s TV in Los Angeles has died, the L.A. Times reports. Charles Runyon portrayed Chucko the Birthday Clown on Channel 7 from 1955 to...
Lloyd Thaxton created and hosted a popular dance show for teenagers in the 1960s, later produced segments for NBC's "Today" and directed Fight Back! With David Horowitz, and most recently...
The Angels stayed alive in the American League playoffs, dropping the Red Sox 5-4 in 12 innings. ESPN Update: The Dodgers open against the Phillies Thursday in Philadelphia, play...
The Hollywood legend died yesterday at home near Westport, Connecticut, according to his publicist, Jeff Sanderson at Warren Cowan and Associates. Newman had been battling cancer for years and recently...
The Legislature finally passed a state budget, throwing the political hot potato into the hands of Gov. Schwarzenegger, who is threatening veto. LAT, Dan Walters Times columnist Sandy Banks...
Novelist David Foster Wallace, best known for "Infinite Jest" and other books, hanged himself at home in Claremont, police said in the city east of Los Angeles. He had been...
The Los Angeles Police Department officer who died in the Chatsworth train collision was identified by the LAPD as Spree Desha, a seven-year veteran who worked in the Office of...
L.A. Radio.com reports that George Putnam died this morning, citing Putnam's long-time friend and producer Chuck Wilder. Putnam moved to Los Angeles in 1951 and quickly became the city's dominant...
Every big newspaper used to have a bar nearby where reporters stayed too late, editors brought new hires to get acquainted over drinks, and Pulitzers were celebrated. For the L.A....
Word was circulated tonight at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism that senior scholar Edwin O. Guthman has died. Guthman served as president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission...
Starr, the makeup artist for Angelina Jolie and other celebrities, was found deceased inside his Silver Lake Elysian Heights apartment. He was described variously as 48 or 51. Police forced...
Leroy Sievers is the former "Nightline" executive producer who has been commenting on the air and blogging about his cancer for National Public Radio. Sievers had previously been the CBS...
A generation of Los Angeles kids grew up watching cartoons on Channel 9 and drinking their milk when Engineer Bill or his announcer said "green light" — and stopping...
LA Observed author David Rensin was on a book tour-vacation when Hollywood manager and producer Bernie Brillstein ">died, but I for one have been anticipating David's reaction. He helped Brillstein...
Darren "Bo" Taylor was co-founder with USC Trojans coach Pete Carroll of A Better LA and ran Unity One. The Coach Pete Carroll website posts: There are superheroes. And then...
Photographer and music journalist Rena Kosnett thinks she got one of, if not the, final interview with the singer, songwriter, musician and former "South Park" voice who died Sunday. Hayes,...
Bernie Brillstein, the successful Hollywood manager and producer, died last night after suffering from complications following double-bypass heart surgery in February. Here's a snip from Cynthia Littleton's story on the...
Back in 2005 we told you about Gene Hughes, creator of the bible of police scanner frequencies. He also volunteered at the desk at the LAPD's Wilshire division. His real...
Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy assigned to the Men's Central Jail, was shot and killed outside his Cypress Park home as he left for work about...
Matt McHale, the former assistant sports editor at the Daily News and longtime Dodgers beat writer for the Daily News, Pasadena Star News and Orange County Register, died today in...
Tokyo-born Rocky Aoki was 69 when he died last night in New York, Bloomberg reports. The Benihana version of Japanese teppanyaki cooking began in New York, but of course they...
Boxer Mando Ramos, who died Sunday at age 59, fought 27 of his 49 matches in the Olympic Auditorium and also got into the ring at the Coliseum and the...
It's not clear who was putting out the Los Angeles Times this afternoon, since the top editors attended the service for retired reporter Ken Reich. No hard feelings about his...
Tygiel, a professor at San Francisco State, was the author of "The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks and Scandal in the Roaring Twenties," the fascinating story of C.C Julian...
An obituary going around says that business entrepreneur and philanthropist Pete Kameron died peacefully on June 29th at the age of 87 at his home in Beverly Hills. He was...
The founder of New York as a Sunday supplement to the New York Herald-Tribune, and later as a standlone glossy weekly, changed the face of American magazines. He also edited...
Don White, a longtime Los Angeles political, social and labor activist, died in his Los Angeles apartment and was discovered on June 20. White had been a Los Angeles Unified...
Oakley's Barber Shop is the last of the original businesses in Westwood Village, dating to 1929. It started on Vermont, near the original UCLA campus that now houses Los Angeles...
Kathy Reich, who is familiar to many on the California politics scene, posts at Take Back the Times: I am deeply saddened to write that my father, Ken Reich, died...
Word at the Los Angeles Times is that retired reporter Ken Reich, 70, died in his sleep. He was found this morning. Friend and former Tom Bradley deputy mayor Anton...
From the Long Beach Press-Telegram website: The sudden death of James Melroy, 36, whose byline has graced these pages both as a prep editor and a keen chronicler of MMA,...
The once-edgy comic who played on his counter-culture roots died about 6 pm at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica. He was admitted in the afternoon for chest pains,...
The longtime moderator of "Meet the Press" and chief of NBC's Washington bureau collapsed this afternoon in the bureau and could not be resuscitated. He was 58. Here are links...
Patricia Tobin, co-founder of the National Black Public Relations Society, died today at Cedars-Sinai. She had been treated for colon cancer. The Black Journalists Association of Southern California reported on...
Heart failure in Florida. Here's the lede of the New York Times obituary: Bo Diddley, a singer and guitarist who invented his own name, his own guitars, his own beat...
Jon Thurber, the LAT's obits editor, gets some ink on Claire Hoffman's religion blog for Newsweek and the Washington Post. To me, one of the most desirable jobs in newspapers...
Cancer claimed Oscar winning director, producer and actor Sydney Pollack Monday at his home in Pacific Palisades. Pollack won his Academy Awards for best director and best picture for "Out...
Appropos of not much, when my daughter was about nine months old Robert Mondavi stopped by our table at Mustard's, beside his winery in the Napa Valley, and offered to...
Variety calls Cowan the "father of Hollywood press agents" and his firm, Rogers and Cowan, at one time "the biggest entertainment PR firm in the world, with a list of...
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 could be better. LAT, DN...
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 later presided over the California...
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 about every time I would...
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 Disney animation whose work set...
Real name: John Charles Carter. Passing: Saturday at home in Beverly Hills. Previous diagnosis: Neurological symptoms "consistent with Alzheimers disease." IMDb credits: 1941-2007. Selected films: Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The...
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 field reports. Pete Noyes, managing...
Brent Lovrien, 35, was remembered Friday as a hero during emotional services downtown that were carried live on some Los Angeles TV stations. Lovie, as he was known at...
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, described in the book by...
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 'A' Platoon at Fire Station...
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 Stadium. He was "the top...
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 of physical standards so that...
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP...
Director Anthony Minghella dies after surgery The Oscar winner, who directed "The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Cold Mountain," died this morning in a London hospital of complications...
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 major money guy for Republicans...
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 against the city The president...
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 with the Delfonics and on...
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 Broadcasting and Cable, Publishers Weekly...
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 to Controller Laura Chick's move...
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 at a Thursday news conference,...
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 away at Bethesda Naval Medical...
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 was a reporter, columnist and...
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 of slain officer Randal Simmons...
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 first member of the Special...
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 materials to build a three-stool...
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 Guide Channel. Before that he...
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 of leukemia. Hammer came south...
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 Grayson in the front of...
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 24 hours. Streets through Sepulveda...
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 Carter, she went to CNN...
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 actor statuettes for the SAG...
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, the Superball, the Slip 'N...
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 in December in the suburbs...
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 foul play, but a cause...
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 on to become a dependable...
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 Drive-In Barbecue in Anaheim in...
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 found dead tonight in his...
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. LAT, DN, Register, Chronicle, Dan...
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 of the passings that LA...
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 talk host on KABC and...
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 76. From the Reporter obituary:...
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 blogger's birthday. Here's our post...
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 became a top violinist at...
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 successful act in the 1960s,...
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 in Beverly Hills. Fields was...
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 Baker Tharp loved the City...
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 operations manager and afternoon voice...
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 for panels and wining and...
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 California to be elected to...
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. He died Saturday of complications...
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 old KNAC-FM. Deanne interviewed her...
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 with a signature sign-off "Car...
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 earlier this year. Lauritzen had...
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 at Bloomberg that Wyman died...
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 one of the insiders who...
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 son Bryan died in a...
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 finally broke for the news,...
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 an infection. He last anchored...
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 of a current Rhames film...
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 Blake. They're calling it a...
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 Dan lyrics that were read...
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, IMDB bio Also: Tom Snyder,...
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 while riding his motorcycle to...
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 who captured Jerry West in...
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 passing has left me and...
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 Blake, Duncan's longtime boyfriend, found...
Beckhams hit L.A., David Zahniser's first Times byline and more — just click below for the Morning Buzz....
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 the civil rights era at...
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, we and a couple of...
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 died there last week after...
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 Laurie Bernie and grandchildren. Previously:...
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 heart attack at a promotional...
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 and held several positions, including...
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 one of three soldiers who...
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 federal courts downtown. I believe...
Publicist and friend Warren Cowan made the announcement that Jack Valenti, the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, died this afternoon. He had been in ill...
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 of Menlo Park and San...
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 away over the weekend. Roz...
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 end of Santa Anita's season,...
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 form of cancer. Now AP...
New LAUSD Supt. Supt. David L. Brewer has discovered what most of us knew — that things in his district are seriously awry. He releases a scathing 115-page report...
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 last week. Tonys death is...
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 Times. Elaine Woo's obituary calls...
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 in Pacific Palisades. The father...
Bit of new formatting in today's Buzz. Check it out after the jump......
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 dad's garage and in 1947,...
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 at Native Intelligence: "Its hard...
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. The Times' online obituary quotes...
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 his vacancy to be held...
Mosey in for a look by clicking below......
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 general director, says in a...
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 hospital. His girlfriend told police...
Jim Beardsley, a local historian who is the archivist at Marymount High School, stopped by the old Marineland site on Palos Verdes Peninsula and found the demolition and clearing...
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 getting a split decision on...
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. Mayor Villaraigosa has relaxed parking...
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 at a practice in Austin,...
Good day of items, including a new concept at county jail — those who are sentenced to 90 days have to stay more than a few hours. Click below for...
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 the Texas Observer, where she...
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 Duke") before beginning to write...
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 in. Carroll and and Pugh...
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, 1976, the Cal State Northridge...
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 much time since at USC's...
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 of kidney disease near Toronto...
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 their site and includes the...
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 the LAT He essentially confirms...
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 still pretty rich Morning Buzz...
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 a couple of L.A. obituaries....
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 Times website. The menu for...
Mayor Villaraigosa picks up another tribute from People en espaol, a strange phone call to Channel 2 about Jim Lampley's arrest, Pellicano's day in court and a flock of other...
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 that the site obsesses about,...
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 respirator Dec. 21 and told...
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 Palm Springs. Ford lived to...
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 of his many comebacks from...
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, had worked together at MGM,...
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 a coma. He will be...
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 old L.A. Alternative Press. Just...
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 Post. Yesterday afternoon, NPR's "All...
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 was president, said that she...
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 home in Los Angeles, the...
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 such as M-A-S-H, Nashville, The...
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 network's Sunday night news franchise...
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. He also had been an...
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 path was not typical of...
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 struck by a car traveling...
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 2 when the hour-long news...
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 a decade he had as...
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. Sinai. An excerpt of the...
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 in the Hollywood Hills. Lomax...
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 his son Peter and his...
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 a contributor in the early...
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 garage as a four-page weekly...
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 at the Los Angeles Times....
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 Southern California car culture. (No...
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, which starred Marlon Brando. His...
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 to publicist Kevin Sasaki. Spelling's...
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 70. He ran three Jerry...
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 and two local media obits...
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 dozens of other TV shows,...
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 the Winchell's Donut and Denny's...
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 died in Los Angeles of...
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 from a rare blood disorder....
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 round), a City Hall communications...
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 big win for the Mighty...
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. More when you turn the...
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 Tom Reddin stepped down to...
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. Much more after the jump......
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 in the LAFD, black market...
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 Reagan, he presided over the...
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 Reagan's spokesman and chief quipster—"irreverent...
♦ 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 these things, estimated the crowd...
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. Chu Lin began reporting in...
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 Puckett died today of the...
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 on KPCC about Eddie (Zachary...
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 degenerative condition known as Lewy...
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 in Seattle following a fall...
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 his clothing store Zachary All....
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 Fife on "The Andy Griffith...
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 story saying that paramedics on...
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 politics, one cup of tea...
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 in 1989. Her other works...
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. Professor Ladegofed died Tuesday in...
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 in Burbank. Fayard and his...
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 play. Chris Penn's film credits...
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 died of cancer two years...
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 obit: "After moving to Los...
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 USC players who went to...
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 Nuys before leaving the city...
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 historic significance to Los Angeles...
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 staff and current VP candidate...
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 major labor leader and power...
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 for thirty-two years. Statements released...
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 protege of Bonnie Fuller at...
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 man who invented management," but...
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 cancer. He was a nationally...
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 father of Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard....
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 seat on a city bus...
Kennedy was a producer and writer for KCBS and KCET and started the program "Life & Times" at the latter station. He died Oct. 5 in Palo Alto of liver...
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 82 and had been ill...
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 in Forest Falls in the...
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. Between there and Madame Wong's...
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 dubious label fell to either...
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 first discovered in May. His...
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 obituary calls Lehman "one of...
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 office. Gordon was from El...
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 the greatest musicians of our...
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 died of lung cancer in...
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 his age at 52, but...
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 who claimed a number of...
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 of the best-selling Jim Morrison...
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 Editor Steve Wasserman, calls Sontag...
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 Chicago Today and the Chicago...
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 Angeles society included the Reagans...
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. Her presence in the Los...
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 out at Gold's when he...
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 Edna Lillich Davidson, who hosted...
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 the Examiner, and also quit...
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 who gave Southern California a...
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 suffered from Parkinson's disease for...
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 of the staff for more...
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 attack suffered in Baghdad. He...
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, The Wind, before he died...
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 first hugely popular on television....
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 Emmy awards during a 22-year...
New at LA Observed
Clinton fundraises in LA
Jim Henson Studios on La Brea became a presidential campaign stop on Thursday.
Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
