Celebrity Deaths | featured news

CBS newsman Mike Wallace, the dogged, merciless reporter and interviewer who took on politicians, celebrities and other public figures in a 60-year career highlighted by the on-air confrontations that helped make "60 Minutes" the most successful primetime television news program ever, has died. He was 93.

Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi, whose speeches helped inspire the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, has died aged 76, says a fellow activist.

Popular California artist Thomas Kinkade died of natural causes Friday at his home in Los Gatos, a family spokesman said in a statement. Kinkade labeled himself the nation's most collected living artist. His paintings and spin-off products bring in about $100 million a year in sales, and are said to be in 10 million homes in the United States.

Whitney Houston was found by an assistant "lying face down in the bathtub filled with water" in a hotel room the day she died, according to the full autopsy report. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Houston's February 11 death was an accidental drowning with the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use" as contributing factors.

Whitney Houston died as the result of drowning in what the Los Angeles County coroner has ruled as an accidental death. The coroner said heart disease and cocaine use were also factors in her death on Feb. 11.

Mr. Glazer and his business partner gave the world Mr. Coffee, one of the first and best-selling automatic drip coffee makers in America.

Thai state media: Thai billionaire who created Red Bull energy drink dies at 89.

The last madam of the infamous Texas brothel that inspired the movie and Broadway show "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" has died in Phoenix. She was 84. Edna Milton Chadwell's nephew, Robert Kleffman, said Wednesday his aunt, the last owner of the Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange, Texas, died Feb. 25. She had been in the hospital since a car accident in October.

Conservative media publisher and activist Andrew Breitbart, who was behind investigations that led to the resignations of former Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York and former U.S. Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, has died in Los Angeles. He was 43....

Davy Jones, British-born lead singer with 60s band The Monkees, dies aged 65, his publicist confirms.