Transitions

"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.