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Topic Archive: Obituaries
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...
Posted November 5, 2009 9:11 AM
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...
Posted October 26, 2009 9:06 AM
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...
Posted October 22, 2009 10:14 PM
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,...
Posted October 22, 2009 5:12 PM
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...
Posted October 21, 2009 8:25 AM
Blogger offers three finalists for LAPD chief, Polanski staying put and more. After the jump....
Posted October 20, 2009 8:58 AM
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...
Posted October 19, 2009 8:05 AM
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....
Posted October 16, 2009 9:20 AM
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...
Posted October 15, 2009 4:06 PM
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...
Posted October 13, 2009 7:53 PM
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...
Posted October 12, 2009 9:10 PM
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...
Posted October 7, 2009 12:58 PM
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...
Posted October 5, 2009 9:11 AM
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...
Posted October 3, 2009 11:41 PM
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...
Posted September 27, 2009 1:20 PM
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...
Posted September 22, 2009 8:25 AM
The star of "Dirty Dancing" and "Ghost" had been battling pancreatic cancer. He was 57. (AP)...
Posted September 14, 2009 5:20 PM
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...
Posted September 12, 2009 5:09 PM
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...
Posted September 11, 2009 2:34 PM
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...
Posted September 11, 2009 1:42 PM
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...
Posted September 11, 2009 10:33 AM
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,...
Posted September 11, 2009 8:13 AM
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...
Posted September 10, 2009 2:06 PM
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...
Posted September 8, 2009 10:05 PM
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...
Posted August 31, 2009 12:29 AM
Steve Greenberg's take on the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. See more by Greenberg in the LA Sketchbook archive....
Posted August 28, 2009 9:37 AM
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...
Posted August 26, 2009 3:55 PM
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...
Posted August 26, 2009 2:09 PM
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...
Posted August 26, 2009 12:40 PM
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...
Posted August 19, 2009 2:30 PM
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...
Posted August 19, 2009 10:23 AM
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....
Posted August 17, 2009 9:18 AM
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...
Posted August 13, 2009 4:59 PM
"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...
Posted August 13, 2009 10:32 AM
Roger Wetherington, who died July 26, had been the adviser to the student newspapers at Cal States Northridge and Long Beach. As such, he worked closely with a number of...
Posted August 12, 2009 1:25 PM
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...
Posted August 11, 2009 6:25 PM
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...
Posted August 11, 2009 9:50 AM
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....
Posted August 10, 2009 9:03 AM
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...
Posted August 6, 2009 4:46 PM
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....
Posted August 6, 2009 9:22 AM
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....
Posted July 29, 2009 9:10 AM
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...
Posted July 27, 2009 8:58 AM
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...
Posted July 26, 2009 9:25 PM
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...
Posted July 25, 2009 11:50 PM
The best-selling writer of gay black fiction fell ill yesterday at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. He lived in Atlanta. LAT...
Posted July 24, 2009 3:19 PM
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...
Posted July 24, 2009 8:30 AM
News, notes and observations are after the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA Biz Observed and follow us on Twitter....
Posted July 23, 2009 9:40 AM
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...
Posted July 21, 2009 11:26 AM
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:...
Posted July 17, 2009 5:20 PM
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...
Posted July 17, 2009 4:15 PM
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...
Posted July 16, 2009 12:33 PM
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....
Posted July 16, 2009 9:13 AM
A quick first look at today's items on politics and the city, with a media obit. Inside after the jump....
Posted July 14, 2009 9:05 AM
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...
Posted July 7, 2009 5:30 PM
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,...
Posted July 2, 2009 10:06 PM
California's $24 billion budget deficit is bigger than the budgets of some states, and Sacramento looks no closer to resolving the problem as IOUs are prepared. Rough & Tumble...
Posted June 30, 2009 9:20 AM
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...
Posted June 27, 2009 6:34 PM
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...
Posted June 26, 2009 9:26 AM
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...
Posted June 25, 2009 3:22 PM
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....
Posted June 25, 2009 9:45 AM
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...
Posted June 22, 2009 9:34 AM
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...
Posted June 19, 2009 2:01 AM
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...
Posted June 12, 2009 8:53 AM
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...
Posted June 4, 2009 9:25 AM
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...
Posted June 1, 2009 9:01 AM
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...
Posted May 27, 2009 9:15 AM
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...
Posted May 20, 2009 12:43 PM
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...
Posted May 18, 2009 4:12 PM
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...
Posted May 18, 2009 8:35 AM
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...
Posted May 16, 2009 11:29 AM
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....
Posted May 13, 2009 10:51 AM
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...
Posted May 5, 2009 9:17 AM
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...
Posted May 3, 2009 2:40 AM
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,...
Posted May 1, 2009 9:10 AM
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...
Posted April 29, 2009 9:05 AM
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...
Posted April 28, 2009 12:19 PM
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...
Posted April 27, 2009 8:54 AM
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...
Posted April 22, 2009 10:36 PM
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...
Posted April 22, 2009 11:40 AM
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...
Posted April 19, 2009 11:38 PM
The Los Angeles pop culture photographer died last night, according to several websites. SuperTouch, Daily Swarm, ThaIndian News...
Posted April 17, 2009 11:18 AM
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...
Posted April 16, 2009 11:54 AM
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...
Posted April 15, 2009 2:41 PM
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...
Posted April 13, 2009 8:30 PM
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...
Posted April 12, 2009 10:12 PM
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...
Posted April 9, 2009 11:30 AM
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....
Posted April 9, 2009 11:23 AM
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...
Posted April 9, 2009 8:50 AM
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 &...
Posted April 8, 2009 9:30 PM
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....
Posted April 7, 2009 9:31 AM
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...
Posted April 6, 2009 8:26 AM
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...
Posted April 5, 2009 11:28 PM
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...
Posted March 31, 2009 9:08 AM
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...
Posted March 30, 2009 12:22 AM
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...
Posted March 29, 2009 8:51 PM
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...
Posted March 20, 2009 11:20 PM
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,...
Posted March 19, 2009 9:20 AM
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...
Posted March 18, 2009 5:40 PM
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,...
Posted March 16, 2009 11:15 PM
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...
Posted March 16, 2009 12:30 PM
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...
Posted March 15, 2009 9:11 PM
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....
Posted March 11, 2009 6:56 PM
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...
Posted March 11, 2009 5:58 PM
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...
Posted March 7, 2009 7:37 AM
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...
Posted March 1, 2009 1:05 PM
Celeste Fremon writes at Witness LA that Ridgway, a supervising deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County, "changed—and in many cases, saved—more lives than anyone can adequately count." Ridgway died...
Posted February 27, 2009 8:38 PM
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...
Posted February 26, 2009 5:58 PM
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...
Posted February 26, 2009 3:25 PM
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...
Posted February 24, 2009 8:45 AM
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....
Posted February 18, 2009 8:58 AM
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,...
Posted February 15, 2009 9:25 PM
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...
Posted February 14, 2009 11:31 AM
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...
Posted February 6, 2009 3:43 PM
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...
Posted February 4, 2009 9:10 AM
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...
Posted January 28, 2009 5:33 PM
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...
Posted January 27, 2009 5:44 PM
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,...
Posted January 27, 2009 12:04 PM
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...
Posted January 27, 2009 11:04 AM
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...
Posted January 21, 2009 4:20 PM
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...
Posted January 16, 2009 9:03 AM
City Council President Eric Garcetti announced this morning that actor Ricardo Montalbán died today at home in his district, surrounded by family. Montalban was 88, according to Garcetti, who made...
Posted January 14, 2009 12:30 PM
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...
Posted January 13, 2009 12:46 AM
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...
Posted January 12, 2009 1:06 AM
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...
Posted January 9, 2009 8:45 AM
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,...
Posted January 8, 2009 12:14 PM
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 everyone’s prayers...
Posted January 7, 2009 6:17 PM
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 Peña in 2005. LAT, Witness LA...
Posted January 7, 2009 9:28 AM
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...
Posted January 6, 2009 9:46 AM
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...
Posted January 5, 2009 5:11 PM
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,...
Posted January 5, 2009 3:47 PM
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...
Posted January 5, 2009 12:53 PM
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...
Posted January 3, 2009 9:27 PM
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...
Posted December 30, 2008 10:40 PM
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...
Posted December 30, 2008 8:22 PM
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...
Posted December 30, 2008 7:51 PM
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...
Posted December 30, 2008 7:35 PM
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,...
Posted December 30, 2008 6:40 PM
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...
Posted December 30, 2008 5:52 PM
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...
Posted December 29, 2008 1:18 PM
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...
Posted December 28, 2008 12:59 AM
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...
Posted December 22, 2008 10:34 AM
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...
Posted December 19, 2008 12:36 AM
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...
Posted December 15, 2008 3:25 PM
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...
Posted December 11, 2008 7:52 PM
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...
Posted December 5, 2008 12:58 PM
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....
Posted December 1, 2008 1:01 AM
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...
Posted November 25, 2008 6:46 PM
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...
Posted November 18, 2008 12:24 AM
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...
Posted November 11, 2008 1:24 AM
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...
Posted November 5, 2008 11:29 AM
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...
Posted November 4, 2008 8:42 AM
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...
Posted November 2, 2008 5:22 PM
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...
Posted October 31, 2008 3:22 PM
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...
Posted October 28, 2008 9:59 AM
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...
Posted October 27, 2008 12:24 PM
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...
Posted October 27, 2008 12:33 AM
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...
Posted October 26, 2008 10:33 PM
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...
Posted October 23, 2008 12:38 AM
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...
Posted October 19, 2008 11:43 PM
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...
Posted October 16, 2008 10:11 PM
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...
Posted October 13, 2008 11:43 PM
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...
Posted October 13, 2008 1:48 PM
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....
Posted October 11, 2008 6:22 PM
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...
Posted October 8, 2008 12:44 PM
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...
Posted October 7, 2008 5:42 PM
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...
Posted October 6, 2008 1:18 AM
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...
Posted September 27, 2008 10:37 AM
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...
Posted September 16, 2008 8:47 AM
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...
Posted September 13, 2008 5:48 PM
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...
Posted September 12, 2008 11:24 PM
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...
Posted September 12, 2008 8:25 AM
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....
Posted September 11, 2008 12:59 AM
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...
Posted September 1, 2008 12:04 AM
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...
Posted August 20, 2008 2:23 PM
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...
Posted August 16, 2008 11:30 PM
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...
Posted August 14, 2008 11:44 PM
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...
Posted August 14, 2008 4:24 PM
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...
Posted August 12, 2008 11:58 AM
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,...
Posted August 11, 2008 12:27 AM
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...
Posted August 8, 2008 8:58 AM
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...
Posted August 4, 2008 12:23 PM
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...
Posted August 2, 2008 11:26 PM
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...
Posted July 14, 2008 2:52 PM
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...
Posted July 11, 2008 3:39 PM
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...
Posted July 7, 2008 12:25 AM
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...
Posted July 3, 2008 11:54 PM
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...
Posted July 3, 2008 11:34 PM
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...
Posted July 3, 2008 11:32 AM
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...
Posted July 1, 2008 10:38 AM
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...
Posted July 1, 2008 12:07 AM
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...
Posted June 30, 2008 11:55 PM
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...
Posted June 30, 2008 3:59 PM
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...
Posted June 30, 2008 11:43 AM
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,...
Posted June 26, 2008 7:21 PM
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,...
Posted June 22, 2008 10:34 PM
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...
Posted June 13, 2008 2:29 PM
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...
Posted June 10, 2008 5:36 PM
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...
Posted June 2, 2008 10:41 AM
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...
Posted May 28, 2008 12:25 PM
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...
Posted May 26, 2008 9:52 PM
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...
Posted May 16, 2008 3:09 PM
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...
Posted May 14, 2008 11:59 PM
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...
Posted May 8, 2008 9:10 AM
E.J. Bavasi was the last general manager of the Dodgers in Brooklyn (and their first in Los Angeles), then created the San Diego Padres and later presided over the California...
Posted May 1, 2008 7:53 PM
In the early 1990s, my beat at the Times was to rove California's small towns and far-flung regions and cover stories that needed telling. Just about every time I would...
Posted April 29, 2008 9:12 AM
Animation specialist Charles Solomon writes in the LAT obituary: Oliver Martin "Ollie" Johnston Jr., the last living member of the celebrated "Nine Old Men" of Disney animation whose work set...
Posted April 15, 2008 2:37 PM
Real name: John Charles Carter. Passing: Saturday at home in Beverly Hills. Previous diagnosis: Neurological symptoms "consistent with Alzheimer’s disease." IMDb credits: 1941-2007. Selected films: Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The...
Posted April 6, 2008 9:11 PM
Spens reported in the 1990s for KNBC, KCBS and KNX Newsradio and was known for wearing a trench coat and walking while delivering his televised field reports. Pete Noyes, managing...
Posted April 6, 2008 7:36 PM
Brent Lovrien, 35, was remembered Friday as a hero during emotional services downtown that were carried live on some Los Angeles TV stations. Lovie, as he was known at...
Posted April 6, 2008 7:26 PM
Dith Pran was the Cambodian journalist whose ordeal in the Khmer Rouge death regime was depicted in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields" and, earlier, described in the book by...
Posted March 30, 2008 1:54 PM
The firefighter who suffered fatal injuries today in Westchester was identified this evening as Brent A. Lovrien. He was a 10-year veteran assigned to the 'A' Platoon at Fire Station...
Posted March 26, 2008 10:37 PM
Back when boxing was a big spectator sport in Los Angeles, Art Aragon fought major bouts at the Olympic Auditorium, Wrigley Field and Hollywood's Legion Stadium. He was "the top...
Posted March 25, 2008 11:58 PM
Contents of SWAT report Reporter Eric Leonard obtained a copy from outside the LAPD, posts the PDF file and summarizes the conclusions, including a relaxation of physical standards so that...
Posted March 24, 2008 9:02 AM
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP...
Posted March 18, 2008 4:25 PM
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...
Posted March 18, 2008 9:06 AM
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...
Posted March 17, 2008 4:55 PM
Latest round of Chick v. Cardenas Exchange of letters yesterday afternoon with City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over gang programs. WitnessLA Jane Usher email invites suits against the city The president...
Posted March 11, 2008 8:57 AM
Not too many musicians follow this particular career arc. Buddy Miles, who died yesterday in Austin of congestive heart failure, began as a session player with the Delfonics and on...
Posted February 27, 2008 7:35 PM
Variety for sale Reed Elsevier wants to sell Reed Business Information and get far away from the advertising-driven market. In addition to Variety, this puts Broadcasting and Cable, Publishers Weekly...
Posted February 21, 2008 9:05 AM
Holiday hours today so no Morning Buzz, but stuff has still been piling up on my desk. City Council members are lining up to object to Controller Laura Chick's move...
Posted February 18, 2008 11:40 AM
Randal Simmons funeral and burial See last night's post for details and street closures. Burke makes Parks endorsement official Retiring Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said at a Thursday news conference,...
Posted February 15, 2008 1:18 AM
Rep. Tom Lantos dies The Northern California congressman, who was 80, said recently he wouldn;t run again due to cancer of the esophagus. He passed away at Bethesda Naval Medical...
Posted February 11, 2008 8:58 AM
Leo Greene chronicled his fight with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for more than a year in the pages of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he was a reporter, columnist and...
Posted February 10, 2008 2:39 AM
The LAT's Al Seib captures the memorable image of a sad day for the LAPD. It's posted on the Times website, along with a profile of slain officer Randal Simmons...
Posted February 7, 2008 6:06 PM
SWAT team veteran Randal Simmons, left, was killed this morning during a shootout with a suspect in the Valley community of Winnetka. He is the first member of the Special...
Posted February 7, 2008 8:30 AM
The bad run continues for founders of Southern California's fast-food icons. Yancey, who died Jan. 26 at age 96, and a partner reportedly used scrap materials to build a three-stool...
Posted February 2, 2008 3:22 PM
Schwed spent 11 years as a writer and columnist at TV Guide, based in Hollywood, as well as working on-air on E! and the TV Guide Channel. Before that he...
Posted January 31, 2008 3:14 PM
Russell “Rusty” Hammer, the former president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, died Monday evening after a long battle with a rare form of leukemia. Hammer came south...
Posted January 29, 2008 3:18 PM
Alumni of the old Herald-Examiner received word this weekend that photographer Steve Grayson passed away. I have no details, but someone who knew him circled Grayson in the front of...
Posted January 28, 2008 12:47 AM
Snow and record rain Snow closed I-5 and the California 58 dodge around the Grapevine, while four inches of rain fell at Santa Barbara in 24 hours. Streets through Sepulveda...
Posted January 24, 2008 8:45 AM
Fran Lewine covered the White House for Associated Press from Eisenhower to Carter. After a stop as deputy director of public affairs at Transportation under Carter, she went to CNN...
Posted January 21, 2008 11:55 PM
Dubious media events most likely to make tonight's local news At 8 am, the media masses are invited to Burbank to observe the casting of actor statuettes for the SAG...
Posted January 17, 2008 1:03 AM
Let's have a round of applause for Richard Knerr, a USC graduate whose Pasadena company of fun brought the world the Frisbee, the Hula Hoop, the Superball, the Slip 'N...
Posted January 17, 2008 12:49 AM
Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose — rendered on the San Diego medical examiner's report as "cocaine toxicity." Turner was 76 when he succumbed in December in the suburbs...
Posted January 16, 2008 3:09 PM
The actor Brad Renfro was found dead at home on South Ogden Drive this morning by his girlfriend. Police said there was no suspicion of foul play, but a cause...
Posted January 15, 2008 5:59 PM
Johnny Podres was the most valuable player of the 1955 World Series that brought Brooklyn its first championship over the great Yankees teams, then went on to become a dependable...
Posted January 14, 2008 1:06 AM
Carl Karcher essentially grew a single hot dog cart in Los Angeles into the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain. He and his wife Margaret opened Carl's Drive-In Barbecue in Anaheim in...
Posted January 11, 2008 8:59 PM
It's the end of an era in Hollywood. Johnny Grant, the last of the "honorary mayors" for whom the ceremonial title still meant something, was found dead tonight in his...
Posted January 9, 2008 10:03 PM
State of Arnold's state Budget cuts to be proposed along with a hike in fees and a constitutional amendment that would impose a spending cap. LAT, DN, Register, Chronicle, Dan...
Posted January 9, 2008 8:55 AM
Noting the deaths of noteworthy Los Angeles figures and LAO's colleagues and friends in the media is just something we do here. Here are most of the passings that LA...
Posted January 1, 2008 6:29 PM
The Kings held a moment of silence before tonight's game to honor Stu Nahan, the former sportscaster at channels 4, 5 and 7 and sports talk host on KABC and...
Posted December 26, 2007 10:57 PM
Irv Letofsky, former editor of the L.A. Times Sunday Calendar section and a critic for the Hollywood Reporter, died Sunday of liver cancer at age 76. From the Reporter obituary:...
Posted December 24, 2007 10:25 AM
Tammara at Metroblogging Los Angeles posts about her connection to Laura Huxley, who she used to see around Hollywood Reservoir and who died on the blogger's birthday. Here's our post...
Posted December 18, 2007 9:02 AM
The author and widow of Aldous Huxley has died in Los Angeles, according to family friends. She was 96. She was born in Italy and became a top violinist at...
Posted December 14, 2007 5:11 PM
The ex-husband and abuser of Tina Turner died at home in suburban San Marcos in the San Diego area. Ike and Tina were a pretty successful act in the 1960s,...
Posted December 12, 2007 2:09 PM
The one-time vaudeville booker who became the agent for Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Barbra Streisand and other stars died of lung cancer Tuesday at home in Beverly Hills. Fields was...
Posted December 12, 2007 1:32 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa's office says that Carol Baker Tharp, general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, has died. The mayor just released this statement: “Carol Baker Tharp loved the City...
Posted November 26, 2007 12:08 PM
Mitch Harding co-created (with Mike Hodel in 1972) the long-running science fiction and writing show "Hour 25" on KPFK. Later at KCRW, he was the operations manager and afternoon voice...
Posted November 22, 2007 5:15 PM
Weekend catch-up edition... City Council is gone to New Orleans No meetings this week with so many members off to a League of Cities confab for panels and wining and...
Posted November 13, 2007 1:03 AM
Gus Hawkins was elected to the California legislature in 1934 [editor's note: !] and almost three decades later he became the first African American from California to be elected to...
Posted November 12, 2007 4:12 PM
Shav Glick covered auto racing for the L.A. Times for 37 years, until he was 85 years old, and earned legend status in the sport. He died Saturday of complications...
Posted October 21, 2007 11:21 PM
Nice post by Deanne Stillman at Native Intelligence on the passing of Tawn Mastrey, once "the voice of heavy metal" in Los Angeles on the old KNAC-FM. Deanne interviewed her...
Posted October 8, 2007 1:17 AM
L.A. broadcasting fixture Gary Franklin died at 79, at home in Chatsworth. He first became known as a street reporter on KFWB, ending his reports with a signature sign-off "Car...
Posted October 4, 2007 8:56 AM
Lauritzen died today of a brain tumor, according to the Board of Education and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He lost his reelection campaign for the board earlier this year. Lauritzen had...
Posted October 1, 2007 10:00 PM
The Oscar-winning actress and former Mrs. Ronald Reagan (when he was a SAG Democrat) never let her true age be pinned down. Katie Harris reports at Bloomberg that Wyman died...
Posted September 10, 2007 10:58 AM
Michael Deaver worked for Ronald Reagan in the governor's office and in the White House and was known both as a clever image shaper and one of the insiders who...
Posted August 19, 2007 8:07 PM
Ed Padgett, the blogging pressman at the Times' Olympic plant downtown, posted this morning that a coroner had just delivered the awful news that his son Bryan died in a...
Posted August 8, 2007 10:37 PM
KTLA's Prime News team remembered and praised their late anchor and managing editor Hal Fishman for the first half of the broadcast tonight. When they finally broke for the news,...
Posted August 7, 2007 11:00 PM
The face of KTLA news died this morning at home, the station announced. Fishman was 75 and had suffered from colon and liver cancer and an infection. He last anchored...
Posted August 7, 2007 8:12 AM
Jacob Adams, the man thought to have been mauled to death by dogs at the Brentwood home of Ving Rhames, is listed as the screenwriter of a current Rhames film...
Posted August 4, 2007 6:31 PM
The New York Police Department confirmed this afternoon that the body found by a New Jersey fisherman last month was that of missing artist Jeremy Blake. They're calling it a...
Posted July 31, 2007 2:44 PM
Editor and writer Glenn O'Brien pens a final entry at The Wit of the Staircase, adding photographs of Duncan and Jeremy Blake and some Steely Dan lyrics that were read...
Posted July 30, 2007 12:52 PM
Bergman, one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died on the Swedish island of Faro. Nine Oscar nominations, but no statue. NYT obituary, IMDB bio Also: Tom Snyder,...
Posted July 30, 2007 7:34 AM
This has been a bad day for the Los Angeles Police Department. Detective George "Mike" Selleh of the Mission station was killed about 3:30 am while riding his motorcycle to...
Posted July 29, 2007 10:26 PM
Nice personal piece on Wen Roberts, the sports photographer who died this week, by David Davis at SoCal Sports Observed. Roberts was probably the photographer who captured Jerry West in...
Posted July 28, 2007 11:40 PM
Sherman Torgan's son posts on the theater's website that programming is cancelled until further notice: Sherman was my father and my best friend, and his passing has left me and...
Posted July 25, 2007 12:57 PM
A medical examiner in New York told perfumer Anya McCoy that the autopsy results will be known in about six weeks. McCoy says that Jeremy Blake, Duncan's longtime boyfriend, found...
Posted July 20, 2007 2:49 PM
Beckhams hit L.A., David Zahniser's first Times byline and more — just click below for the Morning Buzz....
Posted July 13, 2007 9:10 AM
While researching his forthcoming biography of the late California political leader Jess Unruh, Bill Boyarsky delved into the story of how reporter Paul Weeks covered the civil rights era at...
Posted July 12, 2007 3:31 PM
The actor whose familiar face graced these pages last year died Monday night at home in Brentwood. He was 102 years old. In January 2006, we and a couple of...
Posted July 10, 2007 6:08 PM
Geoff Kelly edited at the Daily News and Times and most recently was on the desk at the International Herald Tribune in Hong Kong. He died there last week after...
Posted July 2, 2007 4:46 PM
The founder of Langer's Deli died Sunday in Agoura from complications of being 94 years old. He is survived by his son Norm Langer, daughter Laurie Bernie and grandchildren. Previously:...
Posted June 25, 2007 2:30 PM
Anderson Jones, a freelance film critic who formerly reviewed for E! Online and made appearances on the "E! True Hollywood Story," died after suffering a heart attack at a promotional...
Posted June 23, 2007 12:22 PM
San Jose Mecury News veteran Richard Ramirez was found dead at his home in Livermore. Ramirez began at the paper as an intern in 1984 and held several positions, including...
Posted June 21, 2007 8:55 AM
Anzack's family in Torrance was notified by the Army that his body had been found floating in the Euphrates river near Baghdad. The 20-year-old was one of three soldiers who...
Posted May 23, 2007 11:26 PM
Retired L.A. Times Metropolitan Editor Dave Rosenzweig died last night after battling cancer. A longtime investigative reporter and editor, Rosenzweig most recently had covered the federal courts downtown. I believe...
Posted May 3, 2007 12:28 PM
Publicist and friend Warren Cowan made the announcement that Jack Valenti, the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, died this afternoon. He had been in ill...
Posted April 26, 2007 3:49 PM
The author and journalist was involved in a three-car crash this morning near the Dumbarton Bridge in San Mateo County, according to AP stories out of Menlo Park and San...
Posted April 23, 2007 4:00 PM
Howard Larman and his wife Roz started their folk music show in 1970. Folkscene may be the oldest program on Los Angeles radio. Howard passed away over the weekend. Roz...
Posted April 23, 2007 3:07 PM
The race-track fixture handicapped most recently for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and other LA News Group papers. He had planned to retire yesterday, at the end of Santa Anita's season,...
Posted April 23, 2007 8:30 AM
Last week the staff of Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald put out the word that she would take a leave of absence to recuperate from an unstated form of cancer. Now AP...
Posted April 22, 2007 3:28 PM
New LAUSD Supt. Supt. David L. Brewer has discovered what most of us knew — that things in his district are seriously awry. He releases a scathing 115-page report...
Posted April 20, 2007 4:37 PM
Tony Tranfa, web editor and jazz critic of the Daily Breeze, died today after collapsing in a hallway at Torrance Memorial, where he was admitted last week. “Tony’s death is...
Posted April 18, 2007 5:45 PM
Kurt Vonnegut died tonight in Manhattan, several weeks after suffering brain injuries in a fall. His wife, photographer Jill Krementz, confirmed the news for the Times. Elaine Woo's obituary calls...
Posted April 11, 2007 10:14 PM
Ariel Hanrath-Clark died with his father, producer Bob Clark, in last week's head-on crash with an unlicensed, undocumented suspected drunk driver on Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades. The father...
Posted April 9, 2007 8:25 AM
Bit of new formatting in today's Buzz. Check it out after the jump......
Posted April 2, 2007 7:55 AM
Petersen was a giant figure in Southern California car culture and created a large magazine and book empire, Petersen Publishing. He grew up around his dad's garage and in 1947,...
Posted March 24, 2007 9:42 AM
There will be a public funeral for Cathy Seipp at 10 am on Friday at Mt. Sinai Hollywood Hills on Forest Lawn Drive. Denise Hamilton at Native Intelligence: "It’s hard...
Posted March 21, 2007 7:59 PM
Cathy Seipp's public battle with lung cancer ended at 2:05 this afternoon. She was surrounded by family members and friends when she died at Cedars-Sinai. The Times' online obituary quotes...
Posted March 21, 2007 4:03 PM
First cut on Saturday afternoon...plus Sunday updates at the bottom. Richard Alarcon resigned from the Assembly in time to allow the special election to fill his vacancy to be held...
Posted March 17, 2007 4:30 PM
Mosey in for a look by clicking below......
Posted March 16, 2007 8:19 AM
Edgar Baitzel died Sunday of cancer. He joined LA Opera in 2001 and became Chief Operating Officer in February 2006. Placido Domingo, the opera company's general director, says in a...
Posted March 12, 2007 1:36 PM
Standup comedian Richard Jeni was found gravely injured from a gunshot wound Saturday morning inside his West Hollywood apartment. He died soon after at the hospital. His girlfriend told police...
Posted March 11, 2007 8:06 PM
Jim Beardsley, a local historian who is the archivist at Marymount High School, stopped by the old Marineland site on Palos Verdes Peninsula and found the demolition and clearing...
Posted March 11, 2007 12:02 PM
Latest L.A. city election results are here. In early results, Richard Alarcon was winning his race to rejoin the City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa was getting a split decision on...
Posted March 7, 2007 12:32 AM
Would you believe it's election day again? Los Angeles and some surrounding cities will vote. Go ahead, try it for a change — in L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa has relaxed parking...
Posted March 6, 2007 12:35 AM
Dennis Johnson grew up in Compton and played basketball for Pepperdine before winning NBA championships with the Seattle Supersonics and Boston Celtics. He collapsed today at a practice in Austin,...
Posted February 22, 2007 2:22 PM
Good day of items, including a new concept at county jail — those who are sentenced to 90 days have to stay more than a few hours. Click below for...
Posted February 6, 2007 2:12 AM
The Texas-based political humorist and syndicated columnist died Wednesday in Austin after a long and sometimes public battle with cancer. Ivins' death was announced by the Texas Observer, where she...
Posted February 1, 2007 2:25 AM
Sidney Sheldon had won a screenwriting Oscar (The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer), a Tony ("Redhead") and created TV sitcoms ("I Dream of Jeannie" and "Patty Duke") before beginning to write...
Posted January 30, 2007 11:09 PM
Bob Carroll Jr. worked with writing partner Madelyn Pugh Davis for more than 60 years, including on all the television series that Lucille Ball starred in. Carroll and and Pugh...
Posted January 30, 2007 2:48 AM
Later in life, Daniel Finegood became a husband, father, art lover and longtime member of the board of the Oakwood School. But on January 1, 1976, the Cal State Northridge...
Posted January 25, 2007 2:35 AM
The best-selling mystery author from Laguna Beach died yesterday in Cleveland while awaiting a liver transplant. She had received two livers in 2005 and spent much time since at USC's...
Posted January 22, 2007 10:56 AM
Doherty (next to Mama Cass at this 1966 performance in L.A.) was one quarter of the 1960s hitmakers the Mamas and Papas. His death today of kidney disease near Toronto...
Posted January 19, 2007 3:59 PM
Syndicated columnist Art Buchwald, who died last night, taped his own "obituary video" for the New York Times. It's up on the front page of their site and includes the...
Posted January 18, 2007 10:41 AM
Twice Updated: Eli Broad and Ron Burkle and the Chandlers are readying competing bids for all or part of the Tribune, Jim Rainey reports in the LAT He essentially confirms...
Posted January 17, 2007 5:56 PM
Government, schools, most banks and the U.S. Postal Service are closed for the Martin Luther King holiday. News, of course, continues. A scaled back but still pretty rich Morning Buzz...
Posted January 15, 2007 2:27 AM
Let's see — some more details on City Hall's alleged Red Light Bandits, reports from the jam-packed Dowie-Stodder sentencing hearing, a KNX anchor returns and a couple of L.A. obituaries....
Posted January 9, 2007 1:18 AM
Can't remember the last time we posted so much on the weekend, including Mark Lacter's exclusive memo from LAT publisher David Hiller on rethinking the Times website. The menu for...
Posted January 8, 2007 1:16 AM
Mayor Villaraigosa picks up another tribute from People en español, a strange phone call to Channel 2 about Jim Lampley's arrest, Pellicano's day in court and a flock of other...
Posted January 5, 2007 1:23 AM
Obituaries come in three varieties on LA Observed. Either the death is big news with a SoCal connection, the deceased is prominent in the fields that the site obsesses about,...
Posted December 30, 2006 7:02 PM
Ron Fineman lost his battle with colon cancer today. The founder of the television news website Ron Fineman's On the Record was taken off his respirator Dec. 21 and told...
Posted December 30, 2006 6:52 PM
Former president Gerald Ford died today, Betty Ford announced. No location was given, but the Fords were residing in Rancho Mirage on the desert near Palm Springs. Ford lived to...
Posted December 26, 2006 10:58 PM
James Brown died early Christmas Day in Atlanta after being admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business made one of his many comebacks from...
Posted December 25, 2006 1:25 AM
Warner Bros sends word that animation legend Joseph Barbera died today at home in Studio City. He and partner William Hanna, who died in 2001, had worked together at MGM,...
Posted December 18, 2006 5:58 PM
The founder of Atlantic Records died today in New York. Ertegun fell at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones and later slipped into a coma. He will be...
Posted December 14, 2006 4:25 PM
Stromme died yesterday of cancer at the age of 59. She wrote the Echo Park novel Joe's Word and the Underground Gardener column for the old L.A. Alternative Press. Just...
Posted December 8, 2006 2:26 PM
The talker item around here yesterday was definitely 99-tuba salute, my post on Hollywood studio musician Tommy Johnson from Bill Booth's story in the Washington Post. Yesterday afternoon, NPR's "All...
Posted December 6, 2006 1:48 AM
Lippin had co-managed Brian Wilson and had been a PR rep for, among others, Prince, Eric Clapton and Stephen Stills. The Lippin Group, where she was president, said that she...
Posted December 4, 2006 1:33 PM
Bebe Moore Campbell, a best-selling novelist "known for her empathetic treatment of the difficult, intertwined and occasionally surprising relationship between the races," has died at home in Los Angeles, the...
Posted November 27, 2006 6:21 PM
The director died last night in an undisclosed Los Angeles hospital. His production company hasn't yet released the cause of death. Altman directed critical favorites such as M-A-S-H, Nashville, The...
Posted November 21, 2006 11:15 AM
Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley died today of complications from leukemia. The first black White House correspondent for CBS News, he reported on the network's Sunday night news franchise...
Posted November 9, 2006 11:36 AM
Colen reviewed restaurants for Los Angeles magazine for 21 years during the era when the city and figures like Wolfgang Puck emerged as culinary forces. He also had been an...
Posted November 9, 2006 11:02 AM
Friday's Times carries the obit on the paper's long-time and respected classical music reviewer, Daniel Cariaga, who died on Wednesday at age 71. His life path was not typical of...
Posted November 3, 2006 12:39 AM
The three-year veteran was killed Sunday morning during a routine traffic accident investigation at Riverside Drive and Hyperion Avenue. He was in the street when struck by a car traveling...
Posted October 23, 2006 1:47 AM
Ralph Story was a big deal on local television in the 1960s and 70s. He was the features reporter for "The Big News" on Channel 2 when the hour-long news...
Posted September 26, 2006 10:29 PM
John Meroney writes at the National Review Online that Brewer, who died Saturday, "never ran a movie studio or directed a picture, [but] for about a decade he had as...
Posted September 20, 2006 2:51 AM
The California Clean Money Campaign emailed supporters last night that co-founder and chairman Ted Williams died yesterday morning.. Funeral services will be Thursday at Mt. Sinai. An excerpt of the...
Posted September 19, 2006 7:38 AM
The Wave reports that the civil rights attorney and former police commissioner died last night when her car plummeted down a slope near her home in the Hollywood Hills. Lomax...
Posted September 11, 2006 3:08 PM
Hollywood lost another stalwart today. Actor Glenn Ford was found dead by paramedics called to his Beverly Hills home about 4 pm. Ford lived with his son Peter and his...
Posted August 30, 2006 9:47 PM
Raphael died in her sleep last Saturday in a hospice in Palm Desert, following what Todd Everett calls "a long and excruciating illness." She was a contributor in the early...
Posted August 18, 2006 10:59 AM
The Nguoi Viet Daily News in Orange County is the largest Vietnamese daily newspaper in the nation. Do started the paper in his Garden Grove garage as a four-page weekly...
Posted August 18, 2006 7:15 AM
The Los Angeles Daily Journal columnist died over the weekend after an eight-year battle with prostate cancer. He had previously worked as a feature writer at the Los Angeles Times....
Posted August 7, 2006 10:56 AM
An eagle-eyed (female) reader with a sense of Los Angeles history spotted a paid obit in the Times for Big John Mazmanian, a legend of Southern California car culture. (No...
Posted July 26, 2006 10:11 PM
Buttons began in burlesque, had his own TV show in the early 1950s and won a supporting actor Academy Award for the 1957 film Sayonara, which starred Marlon Brando. His...
Posted July 13, 2006 1:17 PM
Legendary television producer Aaron Spelling died this evening, five days after suffering a stroke. His wife Candy and son Randy were at his side, according to publicist Kevin Sasaki. Spelling's...
Posted June 23, 2006 9:39 PM
Two items: Josiah Beeman, the former aide to San Francisco politicians and Ambassador to New Zealand and Western Samoa for President Clinton, died at age 70. He ran three Jerry...
Posted June 23, 2006 3:39 PM
The Getty looks like it's ready to give back some disputed art to make the museum's Italian problem go away. Plus Antonio Villaraigosa, Jerry Perenchio and two local media obits...
Posted June 20, 2006 2:34 AM
Paul Gleason became an actor after watching Splendor in the Grass with Jack Kerouac. Sixty-some films later, plus Broadway and roles on "Seinfeld," "Friends" and dozens of other TV shows,...
Posted May 29, 2006 10:29 PM
Nice LAT obituary today on the entrepreneur who painted the giant Felix Chevrolet sign downtown and who also came up with the KFC bucket and the Winchell's Donut and Denny's...
Posted May 26, 2006 2:23 AM
From BillboardBiz.com via the Hollywood Reporter: One of the most colorful careers in music came to a close today as pioneering booking agent Ian Copeland died in Los Angeles of...
Posted May 24, 2006 2:58 PM
The founder, editor and publisher of The Argonaut—a useful and newsy community weekly centered in Marina del Rey—died yesterday at age 68. He had suffered from a rare blood disorder....
Posted May 18, 2006 3:28 PM
Does Anthony Pellicano want to bump off his former crony Alexander Proctor? The feds say yes. Dowie loses a round in court (but not that round), a City Hall communications...
Posted May 9, 2006 1:28 AM
Watching Antonio squirm—Dowie and Stodder too, and Dodgers fans, and the art experts at Cal State Northridge who OK'd some suspect Chinese antiquities. Plus a big win for the Mighty...
Posted May 4, 2006 1:51 AM
Antonio Villaraigosa's dapperness and his politics are in the news, as are Rocky Delgadillo's ambition, Michaela Pereira's sensitivity, Vanity Fair's accuracy and Fleishman-Hillard's billing practices. More when you turn the...
Posted April 28, 2006 8:58 AM
Former LAPD chief Ed Davis died tonight in San Luis Obispo after suffering a bout of pneumonia. He took over the department in 1969 when Tom Reddin stepped down to...
Posted April 22, 2006 9:22 PM
Media reaction to the Hiltzik blog disclosure, a city budget with money for more cops, some awards, some obits and General Zinni is in town. Much more after the jump......
Posted April 20, 2006 11:50 PM
Antonio plans to impose a trash fee as the build-up to The Big Speech continues...Monique Moret names names in the Fleishman-Hillard trial: recognizable names...plus racism in the LAFD, black market...
Posted April 12, 2006 1:56 AM
Caspar Weinberger, the former California legislator who served in the Cabinet for Presidents Nixon and Reagan, died at age 88. As Secretary of Defense for Reagan, he presided over the...
Posted March 28, 2006 10:01 AM
There were probably some good stories swapped tonight wherever politicos and journalists gather from Sacramento to Washington. Lyn Nofziger, the Copley reporter who became Ronald Reagan's spokesman and chief quipster—"irreverent...
Posted March 27, 2006 11:56 PM
♦ Saturday's downtown protest march against the Sensenbrenner bill to criminalize giving aid or jobs to illegal immigrants was really big. The LAPD, usually conservative on these things, estimated the crowd...
Posted March 25, 2006 11:01 PM
City News Service is reporting that Sam Chu Lin, a former CBS News correspondent who reported most recently for Fox 11, died Sunday in Burbank. Chu Lin began reporting in...
Posted March 6, 2006 10:26 PM
No obvious Los Angeles angle that I can think of, other than the delight that he gave to local baseball fans. Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett died today of the...
Posted March 6, 2006 6:35 PM
What is it the last couple of days? Add actor Dennis Weaver to the list of newly passed. Also, John Rabe did a piece today on KPCC about Eddie (Zachary...
Posted February 27, 2006 1:34 PM
The last family publisher of the Los Angeles Times died this morning at home in Ojai at age 78. Otis Chandler had suffered from a degenerative condition known as Lewy...
Posted February 27, 2006 6:53 AM
Author Steven Barnes is reporting on his blog (picked up by Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow calls the news confirmed) that Octavia Butler has died in Seattle following a fall...
Posted February 26, 2006 4:53 PM
Eagle-eyed reader Doug Thomson spotted the paid obituary in Saturday's Los Angeles Times for Edward G. Nalbandian, better known as Eddie in TV commercials for his clothing store Zachary All....
Posted February 25, 2006 11:54 PM
The longtime comic actor, who lived here in West Los Angeles, died of lung cancer yesterday at UCLA. Knotts was best known as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith...
Posted February 25, 2006 6:33 PM
Kyle Ballard was jogging with other Pasadena PD officers at the Rose Bowl Friday morning when he collapsed. The Pasadena Weekly has posted a web story saying that paramedics on...
Posted February 24, 2006 6:07 PM
I had not heard of Willie Grace Campbell until Karen Wada profiled her in Los Angeles Magazine in 2004, writing that she "has changed American politics, one cup of tea...
Posted February 10, 2006 12:26 AM
Playwright Wendy Wasserstein succumbed to cancer today in New York. "The Heidi Chronicles" won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony for best play in 1989. Her other works...
Posted January 30, 2006 11:00 AM
Some of you might remember last month's item about Peter Ladefoged inspiring the rare addition of an African sound—the labiodental flap—to the International Phonetic Alphabet. Professor Ladegofed died Tuesday in...
Posted January 27, 2006 6:25 PM
Fayard Nicholas, the Tony Award winner and Kennedy Center honoree who was half of the groundbreaking Nicholas Brothers tap dance team, died Tuesday at home in Burbank. Fayard and his...
Posted January 25, 2006 11:10 PM
The actor and younger brother of Sean Penn was discovered about 4 pm in his Ocean Avenue condo. Police aren't making any suggestions of foul play. Chris Penn's film credits...
Posted January 24, 2006 10:06 PM
Larry Davis, one of the L.A. Times' top photographers until he left on a buyout in 1995, killed himself in Seattle yesterday. His wife had died of cancer two years...
Posted January 20, 2006 11:37 PM
Rawls died of cancer this morning at Cedars, the LAT says. He had left Fremont Place for Scottsdale, Ariz in 2003. From the early Times obit: "After moving to Los...
Posted January 6, 2006 9:35 AM
The Trojans' baseball coach for forty-five years died today in Glendale from complications of a stroke. Born Raoul Martial Dedeaux, he coached at least sixty USC players who went to...
Posted January 5, 2006 7:46 PM
The LAT was right on top of this local obituary. Saxophone-playing, small-government maverick Ernani Bernardi died yesterday. He served eight terms from his beloved Van Nuys before leaving the city...
Posted January 5, 2006 3:52 PM
Judging by my email today, the L.A. Times' failure to get together an obit on Frank Wilkinson (while the New York Times did recognize his historic significance to Los Angeles...
Posted January 4, 2006 10:05 PM
Veteran actor John Spencer died today of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hospital. He plays Leo McGarry, the former White House chief of staff and current VP candidate...
Posted December 16, 2005 4:15 PM
Bill Robertson, the retired L.A. County Federation of Labor chief, was 89 and suffered from Alzheimer's: "...onetime bartender and bouncer who rose to become a major labor leader and power...
Posted December 10, 2005 2:07 PM
Services for former Los Angeles city councilman Marvin Braude will be held Monday at 11 am at University Synagogue on Sunset. Braude represented the Westside for thirty-two years. Statements released...
Posted December 8, 2005 5:15 PM
Gawker posts this regarding the weekend death of Brenda You, a freelance writer who had the unusual profile of having been a Playboy model, a protege of Bonnie Fuller at...
Posted November 14, 2005 9:40 PM
The "father of modern management" was a professor at Claremont Graduate University from 1971 to 2003. From the L.A. Times obituary: Drucker was called "the man who invented management," but...
Posted November 11, 2005 5:27 PM
Dennis B. Underwood, the CEO and general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California since April, passed away at age 60 after battling cancer. He was a nationally...
Posted November 3, 2005 12:32 PM
Mayor Villaraigosa scooped the local media with a statement on the passing of former councilman and congressman Edward Roybal. He was 89 and is the father of Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard....
Posted October 25, 2005 1:14 PM
Rosa Parks died today at home in Detroit at age 92. In Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, the granddaughter of slaves refused to give up her seat on a city bus...
Posted October 24, 2005 8:56 PM
Kennedy was a producer and writer for KCBS and KCET and started the program "Life & Times" at the latter station. He died Oct. 5 in Palo Alto of liver...
Posted October 13, 2005 2:42 AM
Don Adams, Agent 86 on the "Get Smart" TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in 1965, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai. He was 82 and had been ill...
Posted September 26, 2005 3:32 PM
Gail Diane Cox used to be the Los Angeles bureau chief for the National Law Journal. She also had worked for KPFK, and was living in Forest Falls in the...
Posted September 7, 2005 1:47 AM
Shanghai-born Esther Wong began booking punk and new wave bands into her Polynesian-themed Chinatown club in 1978, hoping to increase the meager crowds. It worked. Between there and Madame Wong's...
Posted August 17, 2005 8:12 PM
Erwin Baker used to be the Times' City Council reporter and by virtue of longevity was crowned the "dean of City Hall reporters" before that dubious label fell to either...
Posted August 9, 2005 8:24 PM
David Shaw won the Pulitzer prize for his media reporting in the L.A. Times. He died tonight of complications from a brain tumor that was first discovered in May. His...
Posted August 1, 2005 9:47 PM
The only screenwriter to receive an honorary Oscar died on Saturday at age 89. The news didn't get out until today. The Writers Guild website's obituary calls Lehman "one of...
Posted July 5, 2005 10:26 PM
The office of state Assemblyman Mike Gordon announced that he died today from the brain tumor that was diagnosed in February, shortly after he took office. Gordon was from El...
Posted June 25, 2005 1:11 PM
Obits are praising the accomplishments of Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1978-84. "We have lost one of the greatest musicians of our...
Posted June 16, 2005 1:16 AM
O'Leary, a former nun, ran the political consulting firm O'Leary and Associates in Los Angeles and served twelve years on the Democratic National Committee. She died of lung cancer in...
Posted June 6, 2005 12:36 AM
Organized labor's most influential Los Angeles leader apparently suffered a fatal heart attack late Friday. Contreras suffered from type 2 diabetes; most media sources put his age at 52, but...
Posted May 7, 2005 1:08 AM
Some of you might remember last year's exchanges in the old comments section here about Michel Thomas. He was the language teacher to the stars who claimed a number of...
Posted January 11, 2005 10:23 PM
From Rolling Stone's website this afternoon: Rock & roll manager and writer Danny Sugerman, best known as the manager of the Doors and the co-author of the best-selling Jim Morrison...
Posted January 6, 2005 3:39 PM
Sontag died today [Tuesday] of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book Editor Steve Wasserman, calls Sontag...
Posted December 28, 2004 12:16 PM
The editor-in-chief in 1989 when the Herald Examiner folded died this week of cancer at age 76. His career included stints as managing editor of Chicago Today and the Chicago...
Posted December 10, 2004 3:29 PM
The Times' society editor for 14 years (1971-1985) chronicled the days when the Chandler family reigned over Hancock Park and the prominent names in Los Angeles society included the Reagans...
Posted December 3, 2004 9:20 AM
The dance pioneer suffered a stroke Tuesday and died in a Pasadena nursing facility yesterday. Born here, she formed her famous dance company in 1966. Her presence in the Los...
Posted July 17, 2004 10:09 AM
The founder of Gold's Gym, an L.A. institution of sorts since its founding in Venice in 1965, died over the weekend. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked out at Gold's when he...
Posted July 13, 2004 1:22 AM
My favorite obituaries are of people I never heard of but wished I had. Claudia Luther did a nice job in the Times today with Edna Lillich Davidson, who hosted...
Posted May 22, 2004 12:01 PM
Will Fowler was the first reporter on the scene of the Black Dahlia murder and kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer at the Examiner, and also quit...
Posted April 15, 2004 10:59 AM
Architect Pierre Koenig died Sunday at his home in Brentwood. His Case Study houses #21 and #22 helped put Koenig among the elite modernist architects who gave Southern California a...
Posted April 6, 2004 12:25 PM
The former editor and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai after complications from intestinal surgery, the paper reports today. She had suffered from Parkinson's disease for...
Posted March 9, 2004 11:55 AM
Associate Editor Frank del Olmo suffered an apparent heart attack in the L.A. Times offices this morning and has died. Frank had been a member of the staff for more...
Posted February 19, 2004 2:00 PM
New: L.A. Times obituary by Bob Drogin Mark Fineman, one of the L.A. Times staff writers in Iraq, died this morning of an apparent heart attack suffered in Baghdad. He...
Posted September 23, 2003 11:15 AM
The Fairfax High dropout narrated Los Angeles in his music. He revealed last year that he had inoperable lung cancer, then completed a new album, The Wind, before he died...
Posted September 8, 2003 12:12 PM
Freddie Blassie entertained Los Angeles as the most hated villain of local "professional" wrestling in the 1950s and 60s, when wrestling and roller derby were first hugely popular on television....
Posted June 4, 2003 8:12 AM
Robinson had been the managing editor at KCBS-TV Channel 2 in the early 1990s and had also worked at KTTV/FOX-TV Channel 11. He won eight Emmy awards during a 22-year...
Posted May 31, 2003 10:26 AM
© 2003-2009 • About LA Observed • Email the editor
| Bev Hills billionaire Ron Burkle has $56 million in loans against his two houses. The McCourts have borrowed $28 million on their properties.
| Steve Jones, the self-proclaimed Sire of Wilshire (a nod to the physical address of his former home at Indie 103.1 FM), is back on the air!
| She gaped at me like I was living history -- Miss Jane Pittman come to put her withered lips to the "Young Only" fountain straw of ageism.
As newspapers and television pull back from investigative reporting, foundations and other organizations are beginning to fill the void. One of the most interesting is Accountable California, a project of Local 721 of the Service Employees International Union.
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