Celebrity Deaths | featured news

Hubert Schlafly, credited with inventing the teleprompter device that feeds scripts to actors, politicians and newsreaders, dies at the age of 91.

Walter Breuning, the world's oldest man and second-oldest person, died Thursday. He was 114. Breuning died of natural causes in a Montana hospital, said Stacia Kirby, spokeswoman of the Rainbow Senior Living retirement home where he lived. Breuning had been hospitalized since the beginning of the month with an undisclosed illness.

Sidney Harman, the stereo magnate who shocked the media world when he bought Newsweek magazine for $1, died on Tuesday from complications of acute myeloid leukemia, his family said.

Sidney Lumet, 86, a versatile and influential movie director whose films included “12 Angry Men,” “The Pawnbroker,” “Serpico” and “Network,” died Saturday at his home in New York City.

Mr. Granger, who had early roles for Hitchcock and Goldwyn, had the makings of a big movie star, but his passion for stage acting moved him to leave Hollywood behind.

Ms. Taylor, who gained stardom as a child and appeared in more than 50 films, has died in Los Angeles. She was 79.

Singer Nate Dogg, whose near monotone crooning anchored some of rap's most seminal songs and helped define the sound of West coast hip-hop, has died at age 41.

Veteran actor Len Lesser died in his sleep Wednesday morning in Burbank, California, of complications from pneumonia.

George Shearing, blind from birth, played in an all-blind band before becoming Britain's leading boogie-woogie artist. In the U.S., he hit on a jazz formula that established him in the jazz world and made him one of its leading artists for half a century.George Shearing, the elegant pianist who expanded the boundaries of jazz by adding an orchestral sensibility and a mellow aesthetic to the music, has died.

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who inspired television viewers to trim down and pump iron decades before exercise became a national obsession, has died at age 96.