Actor, Celebrity Deaths | featured news

Richard Griffiths, the versatile British actor who played the boy wizard's unsympathetic Uncle Vernon in the "Harry Potter" movies, has died. He was 65. Agent Simon Beresford announced Friday that Griffiths died a day earlier of complications following heart surgery at University Hospital in Coventry, central England.

In a 2005 interview, the actor estimated that he starred in between 300 and 400 adult films, but the 1972 classic made him famous.

Celebrities extended sympathies Saturday throughout social media about the death of actor Larry Hagman, who gained fame as the villain J.R. Ewing on the TV series "Dallas" during the 1970s and 1980s.

Sons of Anarchy actor Johnny Lewis fell to his death from a building in Los Angeles – moments after he allegedly beat his landlady, an 81-year-old woman, to death, authorities say. Lewis, 28, who played Kip "Half-Sack" Epps on the FX show and who once dated Katy Perry, was found lying in a driveway in the Los Feliz neighborhood near Hollywood on Wednesday, while a woman identified as Catherine Davis was found dead of apparently blunt force trauma inside the building.

...His presence was formidable, even intimidating: The former bodyguard had a muscular, 6-foot-4 frame, but it was topped by the brightest of megawatt smiles... Duncan died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancée, reality TV personality Rev. Omarosa Manigault, in a statement released by publicist Joy Fehily.

Ron Palillo, who played nerdy teen Arnold Horshack on 'Welcome Back, Kotter' dies at 63.

Sherman Hemsley, the actor who made the irascible, bigoted George Jefferson of "The Jeffersons" one of television's most memorable characters and a symbol for urban upward mobility, has died.

George Lindsey, who spent nearly 30 years as the grinning Goober on "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Hee Haw," has died. He was 83.

FILE - This Feb. 5, 1998 file photo shows actor George Lindsey, who portrayed Goober, in the television series "The Andy Griffith Show".

Emmy-winning character actor Harry Morgan, whose portrayal of the fatherly Col. Potter on television's "M-A-S-H" highlighted a show business career that included nine other TV series, 50 films and the Broadway stage, died Wednesday. He was 96.

Andy Whitfield, the 39-year-old star of the cable series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand," has died. "On a beautiful sunny Sydney spring morning, surrounded by his family, in the arms of his loving wife, our beautiful young warrior Andy Whitfield lost his 18 month battle with lymphoma cancer," Whitfield's wife Vashti said in a statement. "He passed peacefully surrounded by love. Thank you to all his fans whose love and support have help carry him to this point. He will be remembered as the inspiring, courageous and gentle man, father and husband he was."