Celebrity Deaths | featured news

Space used to be a man's world. Then came Sally Ride, who blazed a cosmic trail into orbit for U.S. women. With a pitch perfect name out of a pop song refrain, she joined the select club of American space heroes the public knew by heart: Shepard, Glenn, Armstrong and Aldrin....

Stephen R. Covey, author of "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" as well as three other books that have all sold more than a million copies, has died. He was 79. In a statement sent to employees of a Utah consulting firm Covey co-founded, his family said the writer and motivational speaker died at a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, early Monday due to complications from a bicycle accident in April.

Celeste Holm, 95, a musical comedy star who also showed a flair for dramatic work and won an Academy Award for her sympathetic role in “Gentleman’s Agreement,” Elia Kazan’s landmark 1947 film exploring anti-Semitism, died July 15 at her home in New York City.

Film producer Richard Zanuck, who won the best picture Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy" and was involved in such blockbuster films as "Jaws" and "The Sting" after his father, Hollywood mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, fired him from 20th Century Fox, died Friday. He was 77.

Ernest Borgnine, star of screens big and small, died yesterday at the age of 95. During his long and prolific career, the Academy Award-winning star of “Marty” racked up 200 movie and TV credits... Katie Holmes is scheduled to begin shooting a movie next week. “Molly,” a film she co-wrote and co-produced, will star Holmes as (irony alert!) a single mother, People magazine reports...

Andy Griffith died this morning at his North Carolina home, reports WITN-TV. The TV icon’s death was confirmed by Bill Friday, a close friend and a former president at the University of North Carolina. He was 86 years old. His cause of death has yet to be released, but he suffered from heart problems and quadruple-bypass surgery a decade ago.

Nora Ephron, an essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold (only smarter and funnier, some said) who became one of her era’s most successful screenwriters and filmmakers, making romantic comedy hits like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally,” died Tuesday night in Manhattan. She was 71.

Andrew Sarris, a leading movie critic during a golden age for reviewers who popularized the French reverence for directors and inspired debate about countless films and filmmakers, died Wednesday. He was 83. Sarris died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell.

Rodney King, whose beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 was caught on camera and sparked riots after the acquittal of the four officers involved, was found dead in his swimming pool Sunday, authorities and his fiancee confirmed.

Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's little sister Carreen in the 1939 classic movie "Gone with the Wind," has died at age 94, a close friend said Tuesday.