Celebrity Deaths | featured news

Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s TV comedy "Hogan's Heroes" and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show "Family Feud" has died.

THE PROBLEM WITH drawing lines for a living is that sometimes, even the comics fan doesn’t follow them back to the beginning. Which is another way of saying: If you don’t know “Herman,” you should remedy that and acquaint yourself. Because prior to “The Far Side” and “The Neighborhood” and “Speed Bump” and other single-panel strips that are labeled/branded as “quirky” or “weird” or “off the wall” (or in the case of my own ol’ syndicated single-panel strip, “warped”), there was “Herman,” which sprung from the unique pioneering mind of Jim Unger.

His manager, Mitchell Greenhill, said in a news release that Watson died Tuesday at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The inventor of the television remote control, Eugene Polley, dies of natural causes, aged 96, in a Chicago hospital.

Disco queen Donna Summer, whose pulsing anthems such as "Last Dance," "Love to Love You Baby" and "Bad Girls" became the soundtrack for a glittery age of sex, drugs, dance and flashy clothes, has died. She was 63.

Chuck Brown, known as the "Godfather of Go-Go," a genre blending funk, jazz and soul and other musical forms, died Wednesday, his manager said.

Mary Kennedy's family confirmed the death. Police earlier said a body was found in an out building at an address Robert F. Kennedy Jr. owned.

Hair stylist Vidal Sassoon, who undid the beehive with his wash-and-wear cuts and went on to become an international name in hair care, died Wednesday. He was 84.

Artist Thomas Kinkade's death last month was from an accidental overdose of alcohol and Valium, according to the Santa Clara County, California, medical examiner.