Producer Richard D. Zanuck, inventor of the summer blockbuster, dies at age 77
 

Born December 13, 1934, Zanuck, was the son of legendary producer and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, and amassed his own impressive resume of notable films going back several decades. Zanuck gave a young TV director named Steven Spielberg his entrée into features with the low-budget road adventure “The Sugarland Express,” which was well-reviewed but only modestly successful financially. Their next collaboration, “Jaws,” fared somewhat better. That movie virtually invented the summer blockbuster and changed the movie industry forever.

That kicked off a wild run of movies, good, bad and indifferent, that made Zanuck a force to be reckoned with during the seventies and eighties. Zanuck is a credited producer or executive producer on titles such as Clint Eastwood's “The Eiger Sanction,” the biopic“MacArthur,” which starred Gregory Peck, “Jaws 2,” Sidney Lumet's “The Verdict” with Paul Newman and James Mason, Ron Howard's “Cocoon” and “Driving Miss Daisy.

In the nineties he produced some forgettable commercial fare, ranging from “Chain Reaction” to “Deep Impact,” and Lee Tamahori’s “Mulholland Falls,” with Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Chris Penn, Jennifer Connelly and Treat Williams.

He also produced “Road to Perdition,” hands-down the best gangster movie since “The Godfather.” That movie was directed by Sam Mendes, and starred Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig.

More recently he emerged as the producer of most of Tim Burton’s output, including “Big Fish,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “Alice in Wonderland” and this summer’s “Dark Shadows.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/prod...es-at-age-77-2

Broadway, film veteran Celeste Holm dies
 

Kitty Wells
 

Singer Kitty Wells, whose hits such as Making Believe and It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels made her the first female superstar of country music, died Monday. She was 92.

Her solo recording career lasted from 1952 to the late 1970s and she made concert tours from the late 1930s until 2000.

She recorded approximately 50 albums, had 25 Top 10 country hits and went around the world several times. From 1953 to 1968, various polls listed Wells as the No. 1 female country singer.

In 1976, she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and 10 years later received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music. In 1991 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences — the group that presents the Grammy Awards.

Her 1955 hit Making Believe was on the movie soundtrack of Mississippi Burning that was released 33 years later. Among her other hits were The Things I Might Have Been, Release Me, Amigo's Guitar, Heartbreak USA, Left to Right and a version of I Can't Stop Loving You.

In 1989, Wells collaborated with Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn and k.d. lang on the record The Honky Tonk Angels Medley.

Her songs tended to treasure devotion and home life, with titles like Searching (For Someone Like You) and Three Ways (To Love You). But her It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels gave the woman's point of view about the wild side of life. The song opened the way for women to present their view of life and love in country music. It also encouraged Nashville songwriters to begin writing from a woman's perspective.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/...sic/56256608/1

Deep Purple's Jon Lord dies at age 71
 

LONDON (AP) — British rocker Jon Lord, the keyboardist whose powerful, driving tones helped turn Deep Purple and Whitesnake into two of the most popular hard rock acts in a generation, died Monday. He was 71.

Lord co-wrote some of Deep Purple's most famous tunes, including "Smoke on the Water," and later had a successful solo career following his retirement from the band in 2002.

Lord got his musical start playing piano, first taking classical music lessons before shifting to rock and roll.

After moving to London to attend drama school, he joined blues band the Artwoods in 1964 and later toured with The Flowerpot Men — known for their hit "Let's Go To San Francisco" — before joining Deep Purple in 1968.

Deep Purple — which featured Lord along with singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and bassist Roger Glover — was one of the top hard rock bands of the '70s. Influenced by classical music, blues and jazz, Lord took his Hammond organ and distorted its sound to powerful effect on songs including "Hush," ''Highway Star," ''Lazy" and "Child in Time."

The group went on to sell more than 100 million albums before splitting in 1976.

Lord went on to play with hard rock group Whitesnake in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later, a re-formed Deep Purple.

http://news.yahoo.com/deep-purples-j...181213090.html

'Encyclopedia Brown' Author Donald Sobol Dies At 87
 

Donald J. Sobol, the author who dreamed up the kid sleuth Encyclopedia Brown and wrote dozens of books that sold millions of copies, has died at age 87.

His series featured amateur investigator Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, who would unravel local mysteries with the help of his encyclopedic knowledge of facts great and small. The books, first published in the early 1960s, became staples in classrooms and libraries nationwide. They were translated into 12 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.

The Encyclopedia Brown books also featured Brown's friend and detective partner, the tough and athletic Sally Kimball. John Sobol said his dad was ahead of his times in creating a strong female character.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Encyclopedia Brown series. Donald Sobol's latest adventure, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, will be published in October, according to a release from Penguin.

Born in New York City, Sobol served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II and graduated from Oberlin College. He later worked as a copywriter at the New York Sun, where he eventually became a reporter. His first book was rejected two dozen times before it was published, his son said.

In 1958, Sobol became a successful syndicated columnist with his "Two Minute Mystery" series before publishing Encyclopedia Brown Boy Detective five years later to launch the most popular series of his career.

The Encyclopedia Brown concept, in which the solutions to the mysteries are shown after the story, came to Sobol while he was researching an article at the New York Public Library. A clerk mistakenly handed him a game book, with puzzles on one side and the solutions on the other.

Sobol decided to write a mystery series with the same premise. He earned an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America award for the series.

John Sobol said his father would frequently test out story ideas on his four children. "We would talk about it sitting around dinner," he said, adding, "My mom also helped inject humor into the stories."

The series inevitably attracted Hollywood, which tried for decades to adapt the books for the big screen, with Anthony Hopkins, Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn among those interested in the project. But legal disputes over who controls film rights have prevented any feature film from being made.

Sobol's work never brought him the financial success of blockbusters like the Harry Potter series, his son said, but his father loved hearing from countless librarians and parents about children who hated to read until they picked up an Encyclopedia Brown book.

Sobol wrote more than 80 books, working daily until the very end.

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/16/156860...bol-dies-at-87

Stephen R. Covey, '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' author, dies
 

Stephen R. Covey, author of the bestselling self-help book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," died Monday, his family announced. Covey, 79, had been injured in a major bicycle accident in April.

Covey's signature work was published in 1989 and became a lasting bestseller — in 1994, it had been on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks. Currently its sales are tallied at more than 20 million copies. He went on to write a number of sequels and spinoffs, including "The Third Alternative" (2011) and "The Eighth Habit" (2005). He was also a sought-after management advisor.

Covey was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He got an MBA at Harvard, then returned to Utah to get a doctorate from Brigham Young University, where he taught business management.

The Salt Lake Tribune writes:

Covey’s management post at BYU led to "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," which launched a second career as management guru for companies and government agencies, among them Saturn, Ritz Carlton, Proctor & Gamble, Sears Roebuck and Co., NASA, Black & Decker, Public Broadcasting Service, Amway, American Cancer Society and the Internal Revenue Service.

The books have legions of adherents in corporate America who swear by its principles. But critics tend to see it as part of a cult of the self-help American frenzy of past decades or so that tends to trivialize big problems.

Covey founded a Utah-based management training center that sold books and videos and held training seminars. In 1997 it merged with FranklinQuest, a deal from which Covey was said to have made about $27 million in cash and stock.

"We believe that organizational behavior is individual behavior collectivized," he told Fortune magazine in 1994. "We want to take this to the whole world."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jack...-has-died.html

'I Love Lucy' director Bill Asher dies at 90
 

PALM DESERT, Calif. — The director and producer behind the television classics "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched" has died. Bill Asher was 90.

His wife, Meredith, says he died Monday at a facility in Palm Desert, Calif., of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Asher was best known for his work on "I Love Lucy," where he directed Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for 100 of the show's 181 episodes between 1952 and 1957.

He also produced and directed "The Patty Duke Show" and "Bewitched," which starred his then-wife Elizabeth Montgomery. Montgomery and Asher had three children together.

Asher brought Sally Field to TV screens in "Gidget," and took the same sensibility to movies as director of the teen romps "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "Beach Party," starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501368_1...er-dies-at-90/

Sylvia Woods, 'Queen of Soul Food'
 

The victims of the Colorado movie threater shootings
 

Jon..........

My loed,so many people I grew up watching on tv or reading about in books or news papers.May they rest in in the hands of peace and love..

I agree Arwen. He was such a handsome man and one of those men that was just as handsome as an older man, as he was as a young one.

Every time I see that there is a new entry in this RIP thread, I say to myself, "Darn, who died now" and I half-hate to look.

It does feel strange to see so many folks pass that were famous, or at least known to me through TV or movies, when I was younger; pass on lately.

Author Maeve Binchy dies
 

Best-selling Irish author Maeve Binchy has died aged 72 after a short illness.

Binchy, born in Dalkey, Co Dublin, has sold more than 40 million books. Her works were often set in Ireland and have been translated into 37 languages.

They include The Lilac Bus as well as Tara Road and Circle of Friends, which were both adapted for screen.

Binchy trained as a teacher before moving into journalism and writing, publishing her first novel - Light a Penny Candle - in 1982.

She had written the novel in her spare time from her day job as a journalist at The Irish Times.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19057922