Death Count 2008

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Another year, another way to pad my post count...

Edmund Hillary, First Atop Everest, Dies

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Jan. 10) - Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was a heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," Clark said in a statement.

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived," she said.

Hillary's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.

He had pride in his feats. Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: "We knocked the bastard off."

The accomplishment as part of a British climbing expedition even added luster to the coronation of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II four days later, and she knighted Hillary as one of her first act.

But he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.

He wrote of the pair's final steps to the top of the world: "Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest.

"Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed," Hillary noted.

"But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed Hillary, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar (high school) and a no-hoper at university, first to the top of Everest. I just didn't believe it.

He said: "I removed my oxygen mask to take some pictures. It wasn't enough just to get to the top. We had to get back with the evidence. Fifteen minutes later we began the descent."

His philosophy of life was simple: "Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself," he said in a 1975 interview after writing his autobiography, "Nothing Venture, Nothing Win."

Close friends described him as having unbounded enthusiasm for both life and adventure.

"We all have dreams — but Ed has dreams, then he's got this incredible drive, and goes ahead and does it," long-time friend Jim Wilson said in 1993.

Hillary summarized it for schoolchildren in 1998, when he said one didn't have to be a genius to do well in life.

"I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it," he said before planting some endangered Himalayan oaks in the school grounds.

The planting was part of his program to reforest upland areas of Nepal.

Hillary remains the only non-political person outside Britain honored as a member of the Britain's Order of the Garter, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II on just 24 knights and ladies living worldwide at any time.

He reached the summit of Everest four days before Elizabeth was crowned Queen of Britain and the Empire on June 2, 1953. She immediately knighted the angular, self-deprecating Hillary, who was just 33.

Throughout his 88 years, he was always the atypical "typical New Zealander" who spoke his mind.

In his 1999 book "View from the Summit," Hillary finally broke his long public silence about whether it was he or Norgay who was the first man to step atop Everest.

"We drew closer together as Tenzing brought in the slack on the rope. I continued cutting a line of steps upwards. Next moment I had moved onto a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing by space in every direction," Hillary wrote.

"Tenzing quickly joined me and we looked round in wonder. To our immense satisfaction we realized with had reached the top of the world."

Before Norgay's death in 1986, Hillary consistently refused to confirm he was first, saying he and the Sherpa had climbed as a team to the top. It was a measure of his personal modesty, and of his commitment to his colleagues.

He later recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat. "I was a bit taken aback to tell you the truth. I was absolutely astonished that everyone should be so interested in us just climbing a mountain."

Hillary never forgot the small mountainous country that propelled him to worldwide fame. He revisited Nepal constantly over the next 54 years.

Without fanfare and without compensation, Hillary spend decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.

Known as "burra sahib" — "big man," for his 6 feet 2 inches — by the Nepalese, Hillary funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools.

He raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families, and helped set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country. About $250,000 a year was raised by the charity for projects in Nepal.

A strong conservationist, he demanded that international mountaineers clean up thousands of tons of discarded oxygen bottles, food containers and other climbing debris that litter the lower slopes of Everest.

His commitment to Nepal took him back more than 120 times. His adventurer son Peter has described his father's humanitarian work there as "his duty" to those who had helped him.

His passport described Hillary as an "author-lecturer," and by age 40 his schedule of lecturing and writing meant he had to give up beekeeping "because I was too busy."

By that time he was touring, lecturing and fund-raising for the Himalayan Trust in the United States and Europe for three months at a time, speaking at more than 100 venues during a tour.

He was known as ready to take risks to achieve his goals, but always had control so that nobody ever died on a Hillary-led expedition.

He got into hot water over what became known as his "dash to the Pole" in the 1957-58 Antarctic summer season aboard modified farm tractors while part of a joint British-New Zealand expedition.

Hillary disregarded instructions from the Briton leading the expedition and guided his tractor team up the then-untraversed Shelton Glacier, pioneering a new route to the polar plateau and the South Pole.

In 2006 he climbed into a row over the death of Everest climber David Sharp, stating it was "horrifying" that climbers could leave a dying man after an expedition left the Briton to die high on the upper slopes.

Hillary said he would have abandoned his own pioneering 1953 climb to save another life.

"It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by," he said. "Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Daikun · **Daikun**

Hollywood has lost another legend. Maila Nurmi, who created the character Vampira, passed away in her sleep on January 10 at the age of 86.

She was born Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi on December 21, 1921, in Petsamo, Finland (now Pechenga, Russia). She claimed to be the niece of the Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who began setting long-distance running world records in 1921, the year of her birth.

Syrjäniemi moved to Ohio when she was two years old and grew up in Ashtabula, one of the largest Finnish-American communities in the United States.

Maila changed her name at age 17 when she headed west to Los Angeles and landed modeling work with pin-up maestros Alberto Vargas and Man Ray.

Nurmi shared a similar path as struggling-yet-stunning actresses (early on) Julie Newmar and Tina Louise, who all posed for pin-up photos in dozens of men's magazines.

In the 1950s, she created the character of Vampira, popular for both films and as a television host.

In 2006, Nurmi was the subject of a documentary called Vampira: The Movie. The documentary, directed by Kevin Sean Michaels, which noted that her stylized character set the standard for many horror hostesses, including Cassandra Peterson's "Elvira." Nurmi actually sued Peterson, and the case was dismissed when Nurmi was allegedly unable to pay for legal expenses.

Even animators tipped their hats to her in cartoon characters and graphic novels.
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Daikun · **Daikun**

Carl Nicholas Karcher, 90, founder and chairman emeritus of the Carl's Jr. restaurant chain, passed away on January 11 at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif. of complications from Parkinson's Disease.

A public vigil service and Rosary will be held Thurs., Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. and a Funeral Mass will be celebrated Fri., Jan. 18 at 11 a.m., both at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim. Hilgenfeld Mortuary is handling the arrangements for burial at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange on Sat., Jan. 19 at 11 a.m.

Karcher started his business on July 17, 1941 when he and his wife, Margaret, borrowed $311 on their Plymouth automobile and added $15 of their savings to purchase a hot dog cart in Los Angeles.

The hot dog cart proved successful and within a few years, Karcher owned and operated four more stands in Los Angeles. In 1945, the Karchers moved to Anaheim, Calif. and opened their first full-service restaurant, Carl's Drive-In Barbeque. In 1956, Karcher launched the first two Carl's Jr. restaurants in Anaheim and nearby Brea. They were so named because they were smaller versions of the original drive-in restaurant.

In 1966, the company incorporated as Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc. and offered stock publicly for the first time in October 1981. In 1994, stockholders approved the structure of the company to include a new parent company, CKE Restaurants, Inc.

Karcher was well known for his philanthropic work and always encouraged others to become involved in the community. He served on numerous boards of directors for various charitable organizations and received countless awards and honors throughout his lifetime, including the Horatio Alger Award (1979), the Multi-Unit Food Service Operators' Man of the Year and Golden Chain Awards (1983) and the 1998 Service Award from The Claire Burgener Foundation for the Developmentally Disabled.

A devout Catholic, Karcher was knighted into the Order of Malta, one of the highest honors a layperson can attain. He also received the Pope John XXIII Award from the Italian Catholic Federation for "best exemplifying benevolent, philosophical and charitable principles."

Karcher was born on January 16, 1917, to Leo Alexander and Anna Maria (Kuntz) Karcher. The third of eight children, he was raised on a farm near Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and left school during the eighth grade to help on the family farm. Karcher moved to California in 1939. He married Margaret (Heinz) Karcher Nov. 30, 1939. The orange grove on which Margaret was raised in Anaheim eventually became home to the corporate headquarters of Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc., and company offices still stand on the site.

"Carl was a pioneer in this industry, a devout Catholic, and a loving family man. He touched countless lives through his generosity as a business leader and philanthropist, and his legacy will most certainly live on," said Andrew F. Puzder, president and CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc.

Karcher was preceded in death by his wife of more than 66 years, Margaret, who passed away from cancer of the liver June 6, 2006. Together, they raised 12 children: Anne Marie Wiles, Patricia LaGraffe, Margaret Jean LeVecke, Carleen Karcher (deceased), Carl L. Karcher, Catherine Karcher, Janelle Karcher, Father Jerome T. Karcher, Rosemary Miller, Barbara Wall, Joseph Karcher and Mary Miller. Karcher is also survived by his 51 grandchildren and 45 great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Mercy House, a support center serving homeless families in Orange County and the Inland Empire and founded by Father Jerome T. Karcher, at P.O. Box 1905 Santa Ana, CA 92702 (http://www.mercyhouse.net) or Providence Speech and Hearing Center at 1301 Providence Ave Orange, CA 92868 (http://www.pshc.org).
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Allan Melvin, a character actor best known for playing Sam the Butcher on “The Brady Bunch,” has died. He was 84. Melvin died of cancer Thursday at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, said Amalia Melvin, his wife of 64 years.

The jowly, jovial Melvin spent decades playing a series of sidekicks, second bananas and lovable lugs, including Archie Bunker’s friend Barney Hefner on “All in the Family,” and Sgt. Bilko’s righthand man Cpl. Henshaw on the “Phil Silvers Show.” But his place in pop culture will be fixed as butcher and bowler Sam Franklin, the love interest of Brady family maid Alice Nelson, who was played by Ann B. Davis. Melvin played the role from 1970 to 1973.

Born in Kansas City, Mo., in 1923, Melvin grew up in New York and attended Columbia University. He was appearing on Broadway in
“Stalag 17” when he began his decades-long television career with “The Phil Silvers Show,” playing a role his wife said was always his favorite.
“He was proudest of that show,” Amalia Melvin said. “I think the camaraderie of all those guys made it such a pleasant way to work. They were so relaxed.”

He saw steady employment as a voice actor from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, most famously providing the voice of “Magilla Gorilla” for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon of the same name. His other credits include several guest appearances on “The Andy Griffith Show,” ”Gomer Pyle: USMC,” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Daikun · **Daikun**

Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday at a downtown Manhattan residence in a possible drug-related death, police said. He was 28.

According to WNBC, Ledger was found with pills strewn all around him.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Ledger had an appointment for a massage at the Manhattan apartment believed to be his home. The housekeeper, who went to let Ledger know the masseuse was there, found him unconscious at approximately 3:30 p.m. ET, according to the New York Times. After receiving no response from the actor after shaking him, they called authorities.

The Australian-born actor has a two-year-old daughter, Matilda Rose, with former fiancee Michelle Williams. Ledger was set to play the Joker in the upcoming Batman film "The Dark Knight." He received an Academy Award nomination for his work in "Brokeback Mountain."
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Cartoonist Gus Arriola, whose long-running "Gordo" was one of the first syndicated comic strips to celebrate Hispanic culture, died Saturday following a lengthy illness, according to his publicist. He was 90.

Arriola, who had suffered from Parkinson's disease for some time, died at home in Carmel with his wife, Mary Frances, by his side, according to publicist Alan Richman.

Arriola, who was born in Arizona but of Mexican-American descent, started drawing "Gordo" in 1941.

His strip about a bean farmer-turned-tour guide who taught Americans about life south of the border ran for 44 years in as many as 270 newspapers. He retired in 1995.

Fellow cartoonists praised Arriola's skill as an artist and for helping to break down anti-Mexican stereotypes and educating readers about life in a neighboring country.

"He became an accidental ambassador. I didn't intend for him to be, but the readers made him that," Arriola said of his main character during a 2002 interview with The Associated Press.

"People would write and tell me that they went to Mexico because of reading about it in the strip," he said.

Early in his career, when Arriola worked as an animator for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's cartoon studio, his talent with pen and ink were put to use reinforcing the popular image of Mexican banditos, and his original incarnation of Gordo featured a lazy scoundrel taking siestas under a tree.

He remade the strip after a few readers complained that his work was a disservice to fellow Hispanics.

"I was going to do a Mexican Li'l Abner," Arriola said. "I was just going to be funny, then I realized that I'm depicting a real group of people here. I was caught, and I had to go with what I had created."

Arriola learned about Mexican culture from his father, who was born on a hacienda in the Mexican state of Sonora and from growing up as the youngest of nine children in Florence, Ariz., about 120 miles northwest of the border.

He would later recall that he learned to speak English by reading the Sunday funny pages.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie “Jaws,” died Sunday. He was 75.

Scheider died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital did not release a cause of death.

However, hospital spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital’s Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years.

He was nominated for a best-supporting actor Oscar in 1971’s “The French Connection” in which he played the police partner of Oscar winner Gene Hackman and for best-actor for 1979’s “All That Jazz,” the autobiographical Bob Fosse film.

However, he was best known for his role in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film, “Jaws,” the enduring classic about a killer shark terrorizing beachgoers and well as millions of moviegoers.

Widely hailed as the film that launched the era of the Hollywood blockbuster, it was also the first movie to earn $100 million at the box office. Scheider starred with Richard Dreyfuss, who played an oceanographer.

“He was a wonderful guy. He was what I call ’a knockaround actor,”’ Dreyfuss told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“A ’knockaround actor’ to me is a compliment that means a professional that lives the life of a professional actor and doesn’t’ yell and scream at the fates and does his job and does it as well as he can,” he said.

Dreyfuss recalled Sunday a time during the filming of ’Jaws’ when Scheider disappeared from the set. As the filming was on hold because of the weather, Scheider “called me up and said, ’You don’t know where I am if they call.’

“He’d gone to get a tan. He was really very tan-addicted. That was due to a childhood affliction where he was in bed for a long time. For him being tan was being healthy,” Dreyfuss said.

He added that Scheider “was a pretty civilized human being — you can’t ask for much more than that.”

Scheider was also politically active. He participated in rallies protesting U.S. military action in Iraq, including a massive New York demonstration in March 2003 that police said drew 125,000 chanting activists.

In 2005, one of Scheider’s most famous lines in "Jaws" — “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” — was voted No. 35 on the American Film Institute’s list of best quotes from U.S. movies.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Daikun · **Daikun**

Legendary comics writer Steve Gerber passed away on Sunday, February 10, 2008, due to complications from pulmonary fibrosis. He was 60 years old.

Best known for his creation, Howard the Duck, Gerber was responsible for many of the memorable characters of the 1970s, including Omega the Unknown, Man-Thing, and Shanna the She-Devil. In the last two decades, Gerber authored celebrated Marvel Comics stories including runs on Sub-Mariner, Daredevil, and Defenders. DC Comics published Gerber’s creator-owned works, Nevada and Hard Time, both of which were met with considerable critical acclaim.

In television, Gerber was a writer and story editor on such lauded series as Transformers and G.I. Joe. He created Thundarr the Barbarian, and in 1998 shared a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on The New Batman/Superman Adventures.

Prior to his death, Gerber was writing Countdown to Mystery: Doctor Fate for DC Comics.
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Daikun · **Daikun**

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died March 4 at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the Associated Press reported. He was 69.

Gygax had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm.

Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game, known for its oddly shaped dice, became a hit, particularly among teenage boys and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

Despite declining health, Gygax hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January.

Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children.
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Daikun · **Daikun**

Author Arthur C. Clarke, whose science fiction and non-fiction works ranged from the script for 2001: A Space Odyssey to an early proposal for communications satellites, has died at age 90, associates have said.

Clarke had been wheelchair-bound for several years with complications stemming from a youthful bout with polio and had suffered from back trouble recently, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

He died early Wednesday -- Tuesday afternoon ET -- at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, Chase said.

"He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit," he said.

In a videotaped 90th birthday message to fans, Clarke said he still hoped to see some sign of intelligent life beyond Earth, more work on alternatives to fossil fuels -- and "closer to home," an end to the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and ethnic Tamil separatists.

"I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible," he said. "But I'm aware that peace cannot just be wished -- it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence."

Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick shared an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for 2001. The film grew out of Clarke's 1951 short story, The Sentinel, about an alien transmitter left on the moon that ceases broadcasting when humans arrive.

As a Royal Air Force officer during World War II, Clarke took part in the early development of radar. In a paper written for the radio journal Wireless World in 1945, he suggested that artificial satellites hovering in a fixed spot above Earth could be used to relay telecommunications signals across the globe.

He is widely credited with introducing the idea of the communications satellite, the first of which were launched in the early 1960s. But he never patented the idea, prompting a 1965 essay that he subtitled, "How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time."

His best-known works, such as 2001 or the 1953 novel Childhood's End, combined the hard science he learned studying physics and mathematics with insights into how future discoveries would change humanity. David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, told CNN that Clarke's writings were influential in shaping public interest in space exploration during the 1950s and '60s.

"He was very interested in technology and also in humanity's history and what lay out in the cosmos," Eicher said. His works combined those "big-picture" themes with "compelling stories that were more interesting and more complex than other science fiction writers were doing," he said.

Tedson Meyers, the chairman of the Clarke Foundation, said the organization is now dedicated to reproducing the combination of imagination and knowledge that he credited the author with inspiring.

"The question for us is, how does human imagination bring about such talent on both sides of the brain?" he asked. "How do you find the next Arthur Clarke?"

Clarke was knighted in 1998. He wrote dozens of novels and collections of short stories and more than 30 nonfiction works during his career, and served as a television commentator during several of the Apollo moon missions.

Though humans have not returned to the moon since 1972, Clarke said he was confident that a "Golden Age" of space travel was just beginning.

"After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight," he said in his December birthday message.

"Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit -- and then, to the moon and beyond. Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet."
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Toonami visual schedule - UPDATED AUGUST 2, 2015

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

LOS ANGELES - Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald's restaurants, has died, a Southern California McDonald's official said Wednesday. He was 89.

Peterson died peacefully Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in that city.

He began his career with McDonald's Corp. as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago. He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day."

Peterson eventually became a franchisee and was currently co-owner and operator of six McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta, Fraker said.

Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972. He "was very partial to eggs Benedict," Fraker said, and worked on creating something similar.

The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin.

The Egg McMuffin made its debut at a restaurant in Santa Barbara that Peterson co-owned with his son, David Peterson.

Fraker said that, although semiretired, Peterson still visited all six of his stores in the Santa Barbara area until last year when his health began to deteriorate.

"He would talk to the customers, visit with the employees. He loved McDonald's," Fraker said.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

NEW YORK (March 30) - Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, colleague Sydney Schanberg said.

Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. He had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.

Schanberg helped Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped four and a half years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times.

It was Dith himself who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.

The regime of Pol Pot, bent on turning Cambodia back into a strictly agrarian society, and his Communist zealots were blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people.

"That was the phrase he used from the very first day, during our wondrous reunion in the refugee camp," Schanberg said later.

With thousands being executed simply for manifesting signs of intellect or Western influence - even wearing glasses or wristwatches - Dith survived by masquerading as an uneducated peasant, toiling in the fields and subsisting on as little as a mouthful of rice a day, and whatever small animals he could catch.

After Dith moved to the U.S., he became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said AP photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association.

Schanberg described Dith's ordeal and salvation in a 1980 magazine article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." Schanberg's reporting from Phnom Penh had earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Later a book, the magazine article became the basis for "The Killing Fields," the highly successful 1984 British film starring Sam Waterston as the Times correspondent and Haing S. Ngor, another Cambodian escapee from the Khmer Rouge, as Dith Pran. The film won three Oscars, including the best supporting actor award to Ngor.

"Pran was a true reporter, a fighter for the truth and for his people," Schanberg said. "When cancer struck, he fought for his life again. And he did it with the same Buddhist calm and courage and positive spirit that made my brother so special."

Dith spoke of his illness in a March interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., saying he was determined to fight against the odds and urging others to get tested for cancer.

"I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he said. "It is just a house for the spirit, and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942 at Siem Reap, site of the famed 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh. As with many Asians, the family name, Dith, came first, but he was known by his given name, Pran.

After Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, broke off relations with the United States in 1965, Dith worked at other jobs. When Sihanouk was deposed in a 1970 coup and Cambodian troops went to war with the Khmer Rouge, Dith returned to Phom Penh and worked as an interpreter for Times reporters.

In 1972, he and Schanberg, then newly arrived, were the first journalists to discover the devastation of a U.S. bombing attack on Neak Leung, a vital river crossing on the highway linking Phnom Penh with eastern Cambodia.

Dith recalled in a 2003 article for the Times what it was like to watch U.S. planes attacking enemy targets.

"If you didn't think about the danger, it looked like a performance," he said. "It was beautiful, like fireworks. War is beautiful if you don't get killed. But because you know it's going to kill, it's no longer beautiful."

After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and seized control of territory, Dith escaped from a commune near Siem Reap and trekked 40 miles, dodging both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, to reach a border refugee camp in Thailand.

From the Thai camp he sent a message to Schanberg, who rushed from the United States for an emotional reunion with the trusted friend he felt he had abandoned four years earlier.

"I had searched for four years for any scrap of information about Pran," Schanberg said. "I was losing hope. His emergence in October 1979 felt like an actual miracle for me. It restored my life."

After Dith moved to the U.S., the Times hired him and put him in the photo department as a trainee. The veteran staffers "took him under their wing and taught him how to survive on the streets of New York as a photographer, how to see things," said Times photographer Marilynn Yee.

Yee recalled an incident early in Dith's new career as a photojournalist when, after working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, he was robbed at gunpoint of all his camera equipment at the back door of his apartment.

"He survived everything in Cambodia and he survived that too," she said, adding, "He never had to work the night shift again."

Dith spoke and wrote often about his wartime experience and remained an outspoken critic of the Khmer Rouge regime.

When Pol Pot died in 1998, Dith said he was saddened that the dictator was never held accountable for the genocide.

"The Jewish people's search for justice did not end with the death of Hitler and the Cambodian people's search for justice doesn't end with Pol Pot," he said.

Dith's survivors include his companion, Bette Parslow; his former wife, Meoun Ser Dith; a sister, Samproeuth Dith Nop; sons Titony, Titonath and Titonel; daughter Hemkarey Dith Tan; six grandchildren including a boy named Sydney; and two step-grandchildren.

Dith's three brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Irvine, CA—Craig Kausen, President of Linda Jones Enterprises, Inc. announced today that renowned movie poster artist, John Alvin, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, February 6th. He was 59.

Considered the pre-eminent movie campaign artist of the past 35 years, Alvin’s career began in 1974 with his creation of the iconic movie poster for Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles". He most recently contributed design ideas for the campaign for Disney Studio’s "Enchanted."

In a career that encompassed multiple projects for such directors as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Blake Edwards, Mel Brooks and Ridley Scott, Alvin was considered by many studios as the go-to artist for movie poster and campaign art. John Alvin said that his work “created the promise of a great experience” and in that he never failed.

Alvin and his wife, Andrea, had recently relocated to New York's Hudson Valley from Los Angeles in order to be closer to their daughter and only child, Farah, a Broadway actress. John Alvin said that as a child he eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Sunday paper so that he could peruse the ads for the new movies playing at the local theaters. He was enamored with the magic of film at an early age and would create art inspired largely by his love of film. That passion led him to the Art Center College of Design where he met his wife, Andrea (also a student at Art Center) from which he graduated in the early 1970s.

His big break came with the job to create the movie poster for Mel Brooks' “Blazing Saddles” in 1974. This campaign led to Alvin creating the images for numerous other Brooks' films including "Young Frankenstein". His prominence in this medium was soon after established with his creation of the movie posters for Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial” and Blake Edward’s “Victor/Victoria.” Not only did Alvin create the movie posters for those particular films, but he also created many subsequent iconic film posters. In all, Alvin created the posters for over 135 movies in a 35 year career. He is considered to be an innovator in this genre.

Alvin's work is currently represented in several art galleries nationwide where his original paintings, drawings and limited edition fine art reproductions are displayed. In his recent work, he continued to create iconic images for contemporary films like the Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean series.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s, has died. He was 84.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.

Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.

Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease, saying, "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."

With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. "I have a face that belongs in another century," he often remarked.

The actor assumed the role of leader offscreen as well. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1950s. With age, he grew more conservative and campaigned for conservative candidates.

In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle. He delivered a jab at then-President Clinton, saying, "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."

Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003, telling members his five years in office were "quite a ride. ... I loved every minute of it."

Later that year, Heston was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. "The largeness of character that comes across the screen has also been seen throughout his life," President Bush said at the time.

He engaged in a lengthy feud with liberal Ed Asner during the latter's tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild. His latter-day activism almost overshadowed his achievements as an actor, which were considerable.

Heston lent his strong presence to some of the most acclaimed and successful films of the midcentury. "Ben-Hur" won 11 Academy Awards, tying it for the record with the more recent "Titanic" (1997) and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003). Heston's other hits include: "The Ten Commandments," "El Cid," "55 Days at Peking," "Planet of the Apes" and "Earthquake."

He liked the cite the number of historical figures he had portrayed:

Andrew Jackson ("The President's Lady," "The Buccaneer"), Moses ("The Ten Commandments"), title role of "El Cid," John the Baptist ("The Greatest Story Ever Told"), Michelangelo ("The Agony and the Ecstasy"), General Gordon ("Khartoum"), Marc Antony ("Julius Caesar," "Antony and Cleopatra"), Cardinal Richelieu ("The Three Musketeers"), Henry VIII ("The Prince and the Pauper").

Heston made his movie debut in the 1940s in two independent films by a college classmate, David Bradley, who later became a noted film archivist. He had the title role in "Peer Gynt" in 1942 and was Marc Antony in Bradley's 1949 version of "Julius Caesar," for which Heston was paid $50 a week.

Film producer Hal B. Wallis ("Casablanca") spotted Heston in a 1950 television production of "Wuthering Heights" and offered him a contract. When his wife reminded him that they had decided to pursue theater and television, he replied, "Well, maybe just for one film to see what it's like."

Heston earned star billing from his first Hollywood movie, "Dark City," a 1950 film noir. Cecil B. DeMille next cast him as the circus manager in the all-star "The Greatest Show On Earth," named by the Motion Picture Academy as the best picture of 1952.
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP

Nobuyuki · **Nobuyuki**

HIGHTSTOWN, N.J. - Physicist John A. Wheeler, who had a key role in the development of the atom bomb and later gave the space phenomenon black holes their name, has died at 96. Wheeler, for many years a professor at Princeton University, died of pneumonia Sunday at his home in Hightstown, said his daughter, Alison Wheeler Lahnston.

Wheeler rubbed elbows with colossal figures in science such as Albert Einstein and Danish scientist Niels Bohr, with whom Wheeler worked in the 1930s and '40s.

"For me, he was the last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing," Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Max Tegmark told The New York Times.

Born in 1911, Wheeler was 21 when he earned his doctorate in physics from Johns Hopkins University. In the mid-1930s, he traveled to Denmark to study for a year with Bohr, who won a Nobel Prize for his work describing the nature of the atom. In early 1939, with war looming in Europe, Bohr arrived in the United States with the news that German scientists had split uranium atoms. Working at Princeton, Bohr and Wheeler sketched out a theory of how nuclear fission worked.

During World War II, Wheeler was part of the Manhattan Project, the scientists charged with using nuclear fission to create an atomic bomb for the United States. Unlike some colleagues who regretted their roles after bombs were dropped on Japan, Wheeler regretted that the bomb had not been made ready in time to hasten the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Joe, had been killed in combat in Italy in 1944.

Wheeler later helped Edward Teller develop the even more powerful hydrogen bomb.

The name "black hole" — for a collapsed star so dense that even light could not escape — came out of a conference in 1967. The name was shouted out as a suggestion from the audience, and Wheeler seized on it as a substitute for the more cumbersome phrase "gravitationally completely collapsed star."

"After you get around to saying that about 10 times, you look desperately for something better," he told The New York Times.

Wheeler and his colleagues expounded on black holes and other features of Einsteinian relativity in 1973, in a 1,300-page book titled "Gravitation."

In Wheeler's 1998 autobiography, "Geons, Black Holes & Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics," he wrote that the black hole "teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as 'sacred,' as immutable, are anything but."
_________________
"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."- C.S. Lewis
Wink

"Superman can't be emo. He can't cut himself."-CP


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