Hip hop manager Chris Lighty Dies at 44

Hip Hop Chris Lighty died Thursday after a heated argument with his ex-wife in the Bronx, police sources told the Daily News.

Lighty - a veteran manager who has worked with artists such as 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Diddy, Ja Rule and Mariah Carey - Dismissed after declaring "I'm tired of this," before sticking a bullet in the head behind the South Riverdale home at around 11:30 pm, the sources said.

The police found Lighty, 44, founder and CEO of Violator Management, lying face up in the courtyard of the basement in a pool of blood with a 9 mm. pistol at his side, the sources said.

Suicide surprising after a savage fight between Lighty and his 36 year old wife, Veronica, who asked for a divorce last year.

Moving truck was at home, as the veteran music director ready to leave the residence of three floors, the sources said.

Judicial sources said Lighty is the wife of seven years, told police that he was facing financial problems, including $ 5,000,000 debt with the IRS. However, The Associated Press reported that Lighty had paid more than the sale of an apartment in Manhattan for U.S. $ 5.6 million in October.

Lighty who still owed more than $ 330,000 in federal and state taxes to the PA. And in April, was sued by City National Bank does not pay after he had discovered in his account to $ 53,584.

His 17-year-old daughter and a son 5 years old, were in the house 232 W. St. and left when the argument broke out. They were in a park near Lighty, H has three children, went out and pulled the trigger, the sources said.

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07:40 | 0 comments

Steve Franken dies at 80

Steve Franken, a veteran character actor's long career includes playing the pampered young millionaire Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on the popular sitcom "The many loves of Dobie Gillis" in early 1960, has died.

Franken has died of cancer Friday at a treatment and rehabilitation center in Canoga Park, said his wife, Jean.

In a career spanning over 50 years that began in New York, Franken appeared in dozens of television shows and films, including "The Party", "The Americanization of Emily," "The Missouri Breaks" and Comedy Jerry Lewis "What is the deal?" and "Almost like work."

But for fans of television a lot, Franken may be best remembered as Chatsworth Osborne Jr. in "The Many Loves Dobie Gillis."

The series, which aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963, starring Dwayne Hickman as the son of food crazy girl, the beatnik friend, Maynard G. Krebs was played by Bob Denver.

Franken joined the series in 1960, replacing the young actor who played Milton Armitage, rich kid from the original series: Warren Beatty.

"Warren Beatty has four or five series and movies I want to go," Hickman told The Times on Thursday. "When he did not return and 'Dobie Gillis." But as he was gone, we have Steve, and he was wonderful. '

As the Chatsworth snob ", wore clothes that were expensive clothes and a cane pole fishing and all that," said Hickman. "He was a great character. Was the only person to tell me 'Dobie state." Chatsworth Osborne Jr. -. And what a great name, of course, everything was great and so was Steve Rich played well "..

When Hickman appeared in an exhibition of autographs Franken few years ago, said: "Steve told me that people kept coming toward him on the street and asking for an autograph Chatsworth vocation."

But Hickman said Franken has done many things in his career and was a "serious actor."

Jean Franken said that her husband was very proud of his performance in the film director Blake Edwards' The Party, "the 1968 comedy starring Peter Sellers, in which Franken played a drunk who never says a waiter word.

"He and Peter Sellers has worked most of these improvisations for it," he said. "Blake let go."

Franken was a versatile actor who studied at the Actors Studio in New York and later did a great job of theater in Los Angeles, largely dramatic.

Born in Queens, New York, 27 May 1932, Franken is a graduate of Cornell University and launched his career as an actor against the wishes of their parents.

"They wanted to go to medical school, but went directly to New York," said his wife. "He was obsessed with the idea of ??becoming an actor."

As chemotherapy was given eight months to live, he said, was to audition for film and television roles to play until a month before his death.

In addition to Jean, his wife of 25 years, Frank is survived by her daughter, Anna, two daughters from a previous marriage that ended in divorce, Emily and Abigail Franken glass, and two grandchildren.

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07:38 | 0 comments

Feminist Writer Shulamith Firestone Dies at 67

Shulamith Firestone, a widely quoted feminist writer, who published his first book stop, "The Dialectic of Sex," at 25, only to retire from public life shortly afterwards was found dead Tuesday at his apartment in the East Village Manhattan.

Ms. Firestone apparently died of natural causes, his sister Laia Seghi Firestone said.

Subtitled "The Case for Feminist Revolution," "The Dialectic of Sex" was published by William Morrow & Company in 1970. In it, Ms. Firestone extended Marxist theories of class oppression to provide radical analysis of the oppression of women claiming sexual guilt that comes the burden of motherhood, which is for women of random pure organic.

"As the ultimate goal of socialist revolution was not only the removal of privileges economic class, but economic class distinction itself," wrote Mrs. Firestone, "so that the ultimate goal of the feminist revolution must ... not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself:. genital differences between human beings would no longer be as important culturally "

In the future utopian imagining Mrs. Firestone, reproduction would be completely separate from the idea of ??sex can be achieved through artificial insemination, the pregnancy occurs outside the body in an artificial womb. While some critics found his visionary ideas, others felt that his quixotic at best.

Check "The Dialectic of Sex" The New York Times, John Leonard wrote: "A bright and sharp mind is often at work here." However, he added, "Miss Firestone is absurd, stating that" man can not love. '

The book, which was translated into several languages, rushed Firestone lady in the front row of the second wave of feminism, alongside women like Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer and Kate Millett. The rest is taught in universities Woman studies courses.

A painter by profession, Mrs. Firestone did not envisage a career high profile as a writer, he had come to write through posters prepared by various feminist organizations that had helped to found.

The agglomeration of attention, both positive and negative, that his book has generated soon proved unsustainable, said his sister. In the years that followed, Ms. Firestone retired to a quiet and lonely life in most of the painting and writing, but published little.

His only other book, "The airless spaces," was published in 1998 by the publishing experimental Semiotext (e). A memory-in-use forms of fantasy stories that explain facts, that describes the admission of Mrs. Firestone with schizophrenia since 1980 had passed.

The second of six children of Orthodox Jews, Shulamith bathroom Shmuel Ben Ari Feuerstein was born in Ottawa on Jan. 7, 1945, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Louis.

The family Americanized his name Shulamith Firestone, as a child, Ms. Firestone gave his first name shoo-LAH-myth, but he was known familiarly as Shuley or Shulie.

After attending Washington University in St. Louis, Ms. Firestone has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1967. During this time he helped found the group Westside, a feminist organization in Chicago before moving to New York.

Yes, it was one of the founders of the three feminist organizations - women in New York, New York Redstockings radicals and radical feminists - What began as an alternative to traditional groups like the National Organization for Women.

Ms. Firestone drew renewed attention in 1997 with the release of "Shulie," an independent film by Elisabeth Elisabeth Subra Subra. Ms. Subra of 37-minute film is a shot-for-shot remake of a previous little seen documentary, also titled "Shulie," made in 1967 by four male graduate students at Northwestern University.

The film 1967, part of a documentary series about the younger generation, Ms. Firestone profiles, then an unknown art student, such as paints, talks about his life of a young woman suffering from an audit his strenuous work of a group of men teachers.

In the 1997 remake, conceived as a look back at a social landscape that seemed to have changed very little in 30 years, Ms. Firestone is played by an actress, Kim Sosso. His dialogue is spoken verbatim from the original document.

Film Subra lady, who appeared at the New York Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial and elsewhere, has been well received by critics. But the damsel in distress Firestone, who said he was upset because she had not been consulted in the course of its creation, the sister said this week.

In an interview Thursday, Ms. Subra said she had sent to Mrs. Firestone first cut of the film through an intermediary. The intermediary told him after he said that Mrs. Firestone "could be seen as an act of love, but she hated the original movie and see how my film was different."

In addition to his sister, Laia, Ms. Firestone will survive their mother, Kate Firestone Shiftan, two brothers, Ezra and Nehemiah, and another sister, Miriam Firestone shots.

A "no air spaces," Ms. Firestone writes about life after hospitalization for psychiatric therapy. The account is in the third person, but the story is:

"I had been reading Dante's" Inferno "the first time I went to the hospital, he recalled, and at a pretty good pace, but when it turned out that I could not even download anything fashion .... This let the empty days as comfortable as possible, trying not to fall under boredom and loss of hope. "

The story continues. "He was lucid, yes, at what price sometimes recognize joy in the faces of others and greed, and other emotions she could remember he had once, long ago But his life. Has ruined, and she was not a bailout. "

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07:34 | 0 comments

Architect John Kelsey Dies at 86

During the design of what is now the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena in late 1960, the architects Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey express a conviction. "It can be part of this event and experience" The space that houses art

When it opened in 1969 as the Pasadena Art Museum, observers saw the original design art crow, which was covered with stained tiles that seemed to change color with the sun, and the curved interior walls designed to introduce modern art.

An early review in the Times gives the structure "attractive" and "undoubtedly superior to single-local competition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art."

After forming the company in 1958, Ladd & Kelsey, both graduates of USC built a number of large projects in the next quarter century, including the main buildings at CalArts in Valencia and Busch Gardens theme park in Van Nuys .

Kelsey, 86, died on August 04 of complications related to age at home in Santa Barbara, said his family.

The "Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles" (2003), an architectural historian Robert Winter wrote that the museum has attracted the Streamline Moderne style in 1930, and reflects "a classic formal quality."

After the museum opened its doors to great fanfare, quickly sank into debt and took charge of industrial Norton Simon in 1974. Architect Frank Gehry has made a major reconfiguration of the space of the gallery in late 1990 to better show extensive collection of masterpieces by Simone, according to the museum.

By CalArts, Ladd and Kelsey designed the parts called "mega-construction" with a unit capacity of 150 people including eight theaters, galleries and other systems. Sometimes talks about plans for the giant "virtually unprecedented" Kelsey and promotes flexibility of design.

"There is a traditional classroom in the building," said Kelsey provided the classroom, which could be easily reconfigured "to meet the needs of the teacher."

His inspiration for CalArts - originally developed by Walt Disney - had come from Athens, Rome and the Renaissance, as architects.

Also designed plans for another Disney project, Mineral King Ski Resort, which has been proposed by the Sierra Nevada, but stopped after the country became part of Sequoia National Park in 1978.

Anheuser-Busch's Busch Gardens opened in 1966 on 17 acres adjacent to the brewery. 4 million project was both the theme park and tropical oasis including a monorail that snaked around the structure to allow passengers a look at the process of fermentation. The park was closed in 1979, so it could expand the brewery.

A low profile design, modern First Methodist Church in La Verne, was introduced in the 1967 movie "The Graduate," when Dustin Hoffman character is delivered to you to stop the wedding at the end of the film Picture.

Other projects include Ladd & Kelsey Herrick Memorial Chapel Occidental College, USC Student Activities Complex, two eight-story towers of living in what is now Claremont McKenna College, and a number of May Co. department stores.

In Pasadena, the partners designed a three-bedroom home for the family that Kelsey was built in 1962 and wrapped around a swimming pool. The family sold the house to the north of Annandale Country Club in 1978. It was sold in 2003 for $ 1.85 million.

"The house of the architect is a well articulated ..." wrote the guide in the winter. "This building low as pretty as modern when it was built."

John Field Kelsey was born Dec. 7, 1925, in Los Angeles, the youngest of three children. After his father died shortly before the Depression, Kelsey lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles with her mother.

Towards the end of World War II, he was a cadet in the Army Air Force before attending the School of Architecture at USC.

His collaboration with Ladd lasted until 1982, when he moved to Santa Barbara Kelsey and focuses on the design of contemporary homes. Ladd died in 2010 on his birthday 86.

Kelsey was "always interested in good shape," taken in 1970 sculpture, and painting in an abstract style, said his son, Brent, who is also an architect.

"It's been a lot of fun and had a great personality and was not shy to express their opinion," said the son. "But it used to be right."

The twice divorced Catherine Kelsey survive him, his wife of 30 years, three children from his first marriage, Brent, Jennifer and Elizabeth, two grandchildren, and a brother, Richard.

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21:40 | 0 comments

Busy Diplomat Reginald Bartholomew Dies at 76

Reginald Bartholomew, a diplomat and ambassador who has served four presidents, negotiated nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union and for the protection of U.S. military bases in Europe and survived an assassination attempt when he was ambassador to Lebanon in 1984, died Sunday in Manhattan.

The cause was cancer, said his wife, Rose Anne.

Mr. Bartholomew had spent 15 years advising presidents and secretaries of state, and parachuting in places like Moscow and Cyprus to extinguish fires diplomatic when he received his first assignment as ambassador in 1983, in Lebanon.

It was a refined political detachment. The day after arriving this October, the Marine barracks was bombed by terrorists, killing 241 people. Mr. Bartholomew was shot the scene the next day, his job complete.

The violence increased pressure from the U.S. to withdraw its troops. Mr. Bartholomew argued strongly against the idea. President Reagan delay the deportation order until February 1984.

In the same year, terrorists bombed the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut about new construction that was built to replace a bombed last year. Nine people were killed. Mr. Bartholomew was removed from the rubble, but not seriously injured, needed stitches and a cast on his arm.

Mr. Bartholomew has been in Lebanon for two years and was often forced to leave for security reasons. His followers often met firearm during a trip to the country with their personal safety "militia" as he and the name of his wife, leaning over the car windows with automatic weapons to return fire.

George P. Shultz, secretary of state at the time, of which Mr. Bartholomew as "the best" in the diplomatic corps.

In 1986, Mr. Bartholomew was appointed ambassador to Spain, where he led negotiations to maintain a military presence greatly reduced. He had worked in similar negotiations before and after would, in its final place, Italy, where he served as ambassador in 1993 and 1997.

"It's been very difficult," said Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times reporter, who also worked with Mr. Bartholomew Departments of Defense and State. "We wanted the basics, and foreign leaders wanted to prove that they were tough. They do not want their people to believe in the United States of its property."

He added, referring to Mr. Bartholomew:. "It would have been impolite, and a lot of diplomats are not so clumsy said:" I know you have your political problems, but try to find ways to keep the bases and deal with their political problems. '"

In 1964 took positions in government and in European education at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Mr. Gelb was teaching there at the time, and they became friends.

Mr. Gelb went to work as a political consultant for the Pentagon in 1967, and convinced Mr. Bartholomew to join them next year. Both then moved to and from different departments in different roles, with Mr. Bartholomew works at the National Security Council during the Carter administration and was succeeded by Mr. Gelb as director of political-military affairs at the Department of State.

Mr. Bartholomew has played a key role in the SALT II arms limitation with the Soviet Union in 1979. After his stay in Spain, he returned to Washington to serve as Secretary of Security Affairs with Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Years before, Mr. Bartholomew was an assistant secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. A senior military official said Mr. Kissinger requested Mr. Bartholomew meetings in European politics.

"I realized quickly," the official said in an email to Mr. Gelb, "was an indispensable man."

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21:37 | 0 comments

Pulitzer-Prize Winning Reporter Malcolm W. Browne Dies at 81

Malcolm W. Browne, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for four decades of his career, which included covering the Vietnam War - and make one of the most memorable images of the conflict - and a lively second act, as a science that explains chemical weapons and describing the increase in the synthesis of body parts, died Monday in Hanover, NH

The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Le Lieu Browne.

Mr. Browne, who lived in Thetford Center, Vermont, Manhattan and has spent most of his career writing for the New York Times, which sent him to Argentina, Vietnam, Bosnia, Pakistan, where his curiosity the name has become a science writer at the end of 1970.

"My life is exceptional," Browne said in an interview in 1993. "It provides the widest variety of experiences. This, after all, why I became a journalist."

However, his career was somewhat of an accident.

Mr. Browne had worked as a chemist in New York in 1950 (one of his tasks: finding a substitute for gum, the main ingredient in chewing gum), when he was recruited to go to Korea in 1956. He drove a tank for a while, but the army has assigned later to write for The Stars and Stripes, a decision he said it was his idea, not hers.

After being discharged, Mr. Browne found a job in Baltimore with The Associated Press. Less than a year later, in 1961, the AP Saigon made its head office.

Mr. Browne was one of the journalists who have become more skeptical of American efforts to support the government of Saigon.

Neil Sheehan, who joined The Times, after serving as Saigon bureau chief of United Press International, said Tuesday that Mr. Browne was a "fierce competitor", but also a friend. Mr. Browne often wore a belt buckle of gold, and wearing a money belt so you should have cash "to get out of a difficult situation."

"But," said Mr. Sheehan: "I do not think I've ever had to use."

While journalists in Vietnam often clashed with U.S. officials, Mr. Browne later identified Henry Cabot Lodge, who arrived in 1963 as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam as "more honest than most U.S. officials I had known. "

E 'was that Mr. Lodge said Browne, who had played an important role in raising awareness of the problems in Vietnam at the highest levels at the White House through a photograph taken in 1963.

When a Buddhist Monaco was set on fire in public in the same year in protest at the government of South Vietnam, Mr. Browne was the only journalist there, and captured the stunning moment in a photograph.

Several studies, including The Times, decided not to run the disturbing image, but Mr. Lodge said he had seen a copy on the desk of President John F. Kennedy.

In 1964, while working for the AP, Mr. Browne shared the Pulitzer Prize for international reports David Halberstam, who covered the war for The Times.

Mr. Browne returned to the U.S. and then joined the Times, which eventually sent to Vietnam. Then go find the sources that had developed in the forefront refuted optimistic accounts of the government of Saigon.

"A spokesman for the South Vietnamese Army, said in an afternoon press conference in Saigon that the elements formed by the soldiers in the air, supported by tanks, entered Quangtri city early yesterday morning," he wrote in a report in 1972. "However, authoritative sources in the reception said that was not true."

Browne also worked for a time in South America, Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere before he began writing about science. He studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College.

Their tasks vary widely: the dangers posed by toxic waste drop the space shuttle Challenger, an effort to build a robot flying pterosaur, an effort to rid the trash Antarctica accumulate there.

He left the Times in 1980 to work for Discover magazine, but returned a few years later and continued to write science.

In 2000, after retiring to Vermont, Mr. Browne wrote an essay for The Times the dual nature of his journalistic career.

"After 'time, a news writer may begin to feel a sort of monotony in most of the events that pass as news," he wrote. "When this happens the lucky few of us to discover that in science, almost unique among human activities, there is always something new under the sun."

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02:58 | 0 comments

Pioneer of Artificial Heart David Lederman Dies at 68

David M. Lederman, who led the team of scientists who developed the first artificial heart implanted at all - which, although they have had limited success, we must advance in the treatment of advanced heart disease - died on August 15 home in Marblehead, Mass.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Jonathan said.

Dr. Lederman, an aerospace engineer, founded a small company called Abiomed in 1981, hoping to prolong life by providing a greater degree of independence for the severely weakened heart patients waiting for a transplant.

Working with Dr. Robert Kung, chief scientific officer of the company, brought together a research team (including aerospace engineers by the way) who designed the AbioCor.

A grapefruit-sized device that replaces a sick heart, the AbioCor has no wires or pipes that pass through the skin. When implemented, a coil transfers power from the charging device and the skin from the outside. An internal battery and a controller that controls and regulates the heart implanted in the abdomen.

The AbioCor is very different from the first Total Artificial Heart, the Jarvik-7, designed by Dr. Robert Jarvik, who asked the tubes that carry the patient to a small compressor fridge which was implanted in Dr. Barney Clark in "University of Utah, December 1982.

Even this is the distinction between the AbioCor artificial heart and other plant, SynCardia, which is also powered by an air compressor outside the body.

Only 14 of the devices were implanted AbioCor, during clinical trials, 2001-2004, the longest surviving recipient 512 days. In comparison, the SynCardia with its out-of-body halter, has been implemented in more than 1,000 patients, with the longest surviving 1374 days.

One problem with the AbioCor is too big to be in many patients. Abiomed AbioCor II is developed, which is a third smaller than the original and designed to last up to five years.

However, the original device had a significant impact on cardiology. "Despite the fact that the AbioCor has not been used in a large number of patients, has paved the way for further development of fully autonomous artificial heart technology," Dr. Kathy point, a spokeswoman for the American Association Heart and director of cardiology services for women in St John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, said.

Dr. A. Lame Gray Jr., professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Louisville with Dr. Robert D. Dowling made the first AbioCor system in 2002, agreed. "The importance is that it was totally implantable and gave people a better quality of life," he said, adding that among the most recent is a left ventricular device, "which is widely used today as bridge to transplant. "

According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the national transplant system, 3254 patients waiting for a new heart, and that the year 1045 was donated hearts. It was not possible to determine how many of those patients waiting for a transplant are compatible with devices that have been developed from the AbioCor.

When it was invented by Dr. Gray said: "Never's been a more sophisticated device implanted in a human being."

Dr. Lederman had a great vision for your business. In a 2003 interview with CBS News, said: "There is no reason that a person has died when his heart stops If the brain of the person and the body is in good shape, because people has died.? "

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02:55 | 0 comments

A Shaper of Channel 13 Robert Kotlowitz Dies at 87

Robert Kotlowitz, author and publisher, who reluctantly became manager of public television in 1971 and has continued to develop the line of homegrown and imported shows - including "The Report MacNeil / Lehrer," "Live at the Met" "Dance in America" ??and "Brideshead Revisited" - which represent a high point of American television, died Saturday at home in Manhattan.

The cause was prostate cancer, his son Alex said.

Mr. Kotlowitz had just resigned as editor of Harper, in a battle with the new owners for editorial control, when John Jay Iselin, the new president's main public television stations in the country, Channel 13 in New York, offered job.

"Like what?" I've never been in a TV studio, "said Kotlowitz asked in an interview with Channel 13. Mr. Iselin said, he replied:" You will be the editor. "

"Why?" Mr. Kotlowitz hesitant to ask.

"We'll see," said Iselin.

Mr. Kotlowitz, who was senior vice president of programming and distribution, and has remained on channel 13 until his retirement in 1990, was known as a kind of minister of Culture and home to some of the most ardent advocate Mr. Iselin's most ambitious decisions.

Ist proposed an evening news half an hour with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil in 1973, after the couple had anchored public television coverage of Senate Watergate hearings.

The agreement has been difficult, but largely thanks to the tenacity of Mr. Kotlowitz met two years later as "The Report MacNeil / Lehrer." The program, which was seen across the country since December 1975, now known as "PBS NewsHour."

In 1981, when Channel 13 had financial problems, Mr. Kotlowitz convinced Mr. Iselin invest $ 500,000 in a series produced by Granada Television in England. The series "Brideshead Revisited," based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, has become one of the most successful television audiences.

Mr. Kotlowitz played a similar role in introducing the audience to "Monty Python Flying Circus", a live performance at New York City Ballet and the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York, "Bill Moyers Journal" and "Nature".

Mr. MacNeil, who became a friend, said Mr. Kotlowitz aesthetic sensibility deeply influenced PBS programming. "He had innate good taste, and a deep familiarity with literature and art in all its forms," ??said MacNeil said in an interview.

Before the advent of cable, when public television was one of the only alternatives to the speed of the network in many small towns, he added, "Bob was what brought people to opera, ballet The New York Philharmonic. "

In a review in the Washington Post Book World "Somewhere Else," Michele Murray that Mr. Kotlowitz by Isaac Bashevis Singer. "He made the best singer in 'The Manor' and 'The Farm', he wrote," to explain what is essentially the same story of the breakdown of the traditional life of communities isolated Jewish shtetl in Poland. "

In addition to his son, Alex, Mr. Kotlowitz survivors include another son, Dan, a sister, Elaine Magarill, and four grandchildren. His wife, Billie Kotlowitz Leibowitz, who died in 1994.

Mr. Kotlowitz told interviewers that while he was not looking for a job in public television, glad that he was ahead. The work, he said in the interview with Channel 13, took him to the arena of the great pleasures of life: music, art, books, nature, history, current events.

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02:52 | 0 comments

Liberal Party Power Broker Raymond Harding Dies at 77

Raymond B. Harding, former leader of the Liberal Party of New York, which has advanced the careers of mayors and governors, but fell into disfavor in the corruption scandal that toppled the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, died Thursday in the Bronx.

The cause was cancer, said his son Robert.

Mr. Smith came to the Balkans, as a child, a Jewish refugee during the war, the father was beaten by the Nazis. His family survived the camps and a dangerous journey across the Atlantic with a gauntlet of attack submarines.

As a teenager, he got his new American name of a favorite radio program, "said David Smith, CounterSpy." He is a lawyer and became a protégé of Alex Rose, the legendary founder of the Liberal Party.

And from his rise to power in 1977 to his political death, when the Liberals lost their ballot line in 2002, Mr. Smith was one of the corridors of power entrepreneurs of the state, with his party small, but influential in helping to elect Mario M. Cuomo as governor, Rudolph W. Giuliani as mayor, Mr. Hevesi as the city and the state controller, and many other public officials.

Instead, Mr. Smith, a brave, smoking a cigarette behind the scenes tactics approval remained alive long after his party critics called irrelevant, has gained power and patronage. Taking advantage of his influence in City Hall and in Albany, said a high profile, government jobs to his allies, including his two sons, and builds extraordinary profits for themselves.

In 2009, however, pleaded guilty to charges of receiving $ 800,000 for favors to Mr. Hevesi - a fictitious agent for members of the driver to get lucrative contracts to manage $ 141 billion state pension fund and intrigues for a seat in the Assembly of State for the son of Mr. Hevesi.

Mr. Smith has worked with the state investigation that led to the arrest of Mr. Hevesi and others. The criminal charges against Mr. Smith fell, and his own conviction in 2011 in a unique crime number was saved from prison and allowed to remain with the money he had taken. But it was a stunning humiliation for one of the last political leader of New York days old.

Like his predecessor, Mr. Rose, Mr. Smith helped the Republicans and Democrats elected, taking advantage of the small liberal party members - only 1 percent of the electoral lists - something more important: a second place to vote for candidates who thus acquired an undeserved approval times as progressives. It also gave voters a disgruntled liberal Democrat and Republican, to appease their consciences.

Since New York is one of the few states that allow a candidate the votes are added as a candidate, the parties have little influence beyond all measure, because supporting candidates or get support.

In turn, are guaranteed a line to the next statewide ballot, if they receive at least 50,000 votes. Playing both ends against the middle, Mr. Smith might be a maker of kings and the orchestration of the survival of his party.

For students of politics, watching the maneuver Harding was a rite of the season in New York elections. He took the crown of tin capo political flavor: an overweight chin, with heavy eyelids, fingers stained yellow from unfiltered Camel, a booming voice, the eyes with sunglasses that many are intimidating. He was suddenly, and often spoke as if the writing aloud titles Tabloids - "LP" for the game, "libs" for the faithful.

Harding was a collaborator of L. Governor Hugh Carey 1975-1977. He became the leader of the Liberal Party after the 1976 death of Mr. Rose, who founded the party in 1944 with a program to keep Republicans and liberal Democrats honest.

The party helped the election of Democrat Robert F. Wagner and Republican John V. Lindsay, as mayors, Republican Jacob K. Javits as senator, Democrat Edward I. Koch as a young congressman, and Mr. Carey and Mr. Cuomo, both Democrats, as governors.

Mr. Smith has never been elected to any office and has had little use for ideology. An old joke was that the Liberal Party was neither liberal nor a party. He carried out without primary or convention and its candidates had a few.

Harding has decided that the Democrats or Republicans, to support in order to earn your patronage and rewards. His title was also a fiction: the vice president with absolute power, the president of being a figurehead.

His smartest decision that was said to have been his first embrace of Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, Democrat, David N. Dinkins for mayor in 1989. Mr. Dinkins won that election, but after Mayor Giuliani won in 1993.

Mr. Smith took advantage of a pressure group and employment guarantees for their children, Robert, as director of budget and the deputy mayor, and Russell, as Head of Housing and Development Corporation, although he was a deserter from the university with no experience in housing. But in 2005, Russell Smith was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling $ 400,000 from the agency.

Asked about criticism from Democrats for backing Giuliani, Mr. Smith said: "Political parties serve a purpose The purpose of the Liberal Party at that time was to save and restore this great city, and has done so. Ask the leadership of Giuliani. "

The leader of the Liberal Party, was born Helen Marie Branko Hochwald Hochwald and January 31, 1935, in Herzegovina. While World War II he moved through the Balkans, the father was attacked by the Nazis and the family fled to Italy in 1941, taking refuge in a refugee camp in Calabria.

Jewish immigration in times of war the U.S. has been virtually banned in 1944 but were among the 1,000 Jewish refugees Hochwald granted safe haven by President Franklin D. Roosevelt - the only large group of Jews admitted during the war - as told in the book "Haven", a press photographer Ruth Gruber.

Raymond graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1953 and City College in 1957 with a degree in political science. After his military service as an infantry officer, he earned a degree in law at the University of New York in 1961.

Besides his sons, Mr. Smith is survived by his wife of 55 years, the former Elisabeth Einhorn, and two grandchildren.

He practiced law for five years between 1966 and 1969 was the city attorney, research inspectors damaged buildings. In 1975, he joined the staff of Governor Carey as disaster coordinator, military adviser and legislative liaison.

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02:02 | 0 comments

Prodigy Ruggiero Ricci Dies at 94

Ruggiero Ricci, a violin virtuoso who first shocked audiences at the age of 10 years with his mastery of Mendelssohn and was later transformed into a mature musician, the scope has reached the 19 Caprices of acrobatics century Paganini premieres of contemporary works, died Sunday at home in Palm Springs, California

His death was confirmed by his son, Gian-Franco.

Mr. Ricci has grown up in San Francisco, the son of an Italian immigrant and amateur trombonist, who insisted that their seven children to learn to play instruments. Mr. Ricci prefers the piano, but her parents had other plans.

"I was bribed with violins," he told The New York Times in 1976. "I woke in the morning and there would be another. I once had five violins under my bed."

At 6, Ruggiero went to classes with Louis Persinger, who also taught another district prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin.

"If not for Menuhin, I would not be here," said Ricci. "It's four years older than me, and everyone should think about miracles. But believe me, when you're a miracle, a parent is ambitious in the background."

She made her debut in San Francisco in 1928, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, and very soon on tour in New York and Europe. The critics were enthusiastic when Mendelssohn played in Manhattan in 1929.

"More of a young gentleman, who has played with speed and accuracy through these steps, and have been inflated by the press and soon disappeared forever," wrote Olin Downes in The Times. "But there are valid reasons to believe that heard the previous night and had the talent to mature in terms of physical force and poetic expression, taste, feeling and an admirable sense of proportion are the distinctive qualities the performance of last night. "

The article described Ruggiero 9 years. It was actually 11, but its promoters was shaving two years old to make it look even more precocious. It was not the only way that his identity had been manipulated.

His parents originally named Woodrow Wilson Rico, but then gave his name sounds Italian, because it seemed a better choice for a musical prodigy. During his lifetime he was called Roger.

"Until the year 1950 or 1960, his passport, he said 'Rich Wilson, also known as Ruggiero Ricci,'" said Gian-Franco Ricci.

In 1930, after Roger had moved to New York with Mr. Persinger and began to gain substantial salary for the operation, has become the center of a custody dispute highly advertising. Years before, his father, Peter Ricci, had custody of Roger and his brother George to an assistant of Mr. Persinger, Beth Lackey.

(George, called the birth of George Washington, he continued his studies to become a cellist.) At some point the boys ran away from Mrs. Lackey, Peter Ricci and later successfully fought to regain custody of Children. But his son did not trust his motives, and often said his father was trying to exploit.

As Ruggiero later in his teens, some critics have suggested that their technical skills was exceeding its capacity to interpret. However, it was precisely at this time that Mr. Ricci began to dominate the music that would later help him revive his career: the 24 Caprices of Paganini's works for solo violin and fire of daunting.

He played the pieces frequently during World War II, alone on stage in front of the soldiers, while he served as an "entertainment specialist" in the Army Air Force. After the war he became the first to register works only in 1947.

"I am forced in this direction, because no one had taken this path," said the Times. "I had to make a comeback."

He turned and almost always taught in the next five years, working at Indiana University, Juilliard and elsewhere, and performing a wide repertoire that included Paganini, as well as works by Bach and other composers .

In 1963, he performed the premiere of Alberto Ginastera Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, which commissioned the work for the opening of Lincoln Center this year. He made over 500 recordings. His last public performance was at the Smithsonian Institution in 2003.

Mr. Ricci was born on July 24, 1918, in San Francisco. His father had emigrated to Italy and worked as a miner in Colorado. His mother was born in the United States.

Mr. Ricci first two marriages ended in divorce.

In addition to Gian-Franco, the son of his second marriage, survivors include his wife, Julia, a sister, Emma Ricci, a first violinist of the Metropolitan Opera, two sons from his first marriage, Riana Muller and Roger, a His second daughter married, Paul Hopp, and several grandchildren.

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02:00 | 0 comments

Multifaceted Businessman Ben Heineman Dies at 98

Ben W. Heineman, a leading lawyer and businessman who took over the railways, has created one of the nation's first conglomerates and became a close confidant and adviser to President Lyndon B. Johnson, died Sunday at Waukesha, Wisconsin

The cause was a stroke, his son, Ben Jr. said.

Joseph A. Califano Jr., who was deputy chief of the National Johnson said in an interview Thursday that the president had asked him repeatedly to call for advice to Mr. Heineman.

President said that the value of business acumen of Mr. Heineman, honesty and understanding the laws and social programs that the government expected Johnson to play in areas such as civil rights, health, education, control of 'pollution and consumer protection.

"More than anyone, understood what we were trying to do," said Califano. "It was a selfless. I had a personal agenda. He said, as if it were, is very difficult, and most importantly you can do to a president or one of his colleagues, like me, because people are generally fawning over you. "

While working in law or business, Mr. Heineman often had jobs in different governments in Illinois, almost all without pay, serving governor Adlai E. Stevenson and Mayor Richard J. Daley, of Chicago. Johnson was offered a number of places - Ambassador to the UN or the head of the Department of Commerce, Office of Management and Budget or the Department of Health, Education and Welfare - he refused. He, however, serve as chairman of the White House Conference on Civil Rights.

Mr. Heineman and his family lived in an integrated neighborhood in Chicago, and has found that people who left because blacks moved to be "objectionable".

In addition to his government service, Mr. Heineman, who once described himself as "a professional problem solver", has had two successful careers: 20 years of law in Chicago, and 30 years. He turned around the business in 1954, when he led a group of shareholders in a power struggle for control of Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, which was known in some circles as the "poverty and still limping. "

In a letter to shareholders, the group of newcomers to Mr. Heineman has accused managers of the railroad to run a "gold mine" for themselves and called "the final lax, the extravagance and inefficiency."

The rebels won, and Mr. Heineman has become CEO of the railroad.

In 1956, he took up driving a much larger system, the Chicago and North Western Railway, which was known errors and mismanagement. They buy new equipment, the trains running on time and fought the unions, insisting that the work to eliminate obsolete. In 1964, the railroad $ 5.5 million became a deficit of $ 23,200,000 profit.

Mr. Heineman began to acquire other businesses - steel, clothing, chemicals - to form the Northwest Industries, one of the country's largest conglomerates. In 1972, under his leadership, the company sold the railroad to its employees, producing 200 million dollar tax benefit to the northwest of the country, that Mr. Heineman then used to acquire other companies. He retired from the company in 1985.

"He refused to take stock options," said Califano. "I thought that that a company must pay your money and invest in the company. This country today would be much better if we had a dozen business leaders from the middle, such as Ben Heineman. There was a bit of greed in him. "

Benjamin Heineman was born February 10, 1914, in Wausau, Wis. He attended public schools and earned his pilot's license at age 14. I was hoping to go to Yale, but in 1930, when Mr. Heineman was 16 years old, his father was ruined and committed suicide.

It was at the University of Michigan from 1930 until 1933 and then persuaded the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Northwestern University that lets you record a year in advance. He graduated in 1936 at 22 years, editor of the Law and the top of his class. He has worked in law firms in Chicago and began his, and Swiren Heineman.

In 1952, Mr. Heineman has worked on the presidential campaign as a writer of speeches for Mr. Stevenson, in collaboration with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in a speech denouncing the tactics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who led the hunt for communists in the federal government.

"He was president of the Illinois Board of Higher Education 1962-1969, and 1966, when racial conflict at its worst, Mayor Daley appointed him president of the Summit Conference in Chicago for the Civil Rights Fair Housing.

Mr. Heineman served on many boards in the arts, education and charity. In 2006, he and his wife, Natalie, donated his collection of glass sculptures, worth some $ 10 million, the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York

Also his son, Mr. Heineman will survive a daughter, Martha Heineman Pieper, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His wife died in 2010, after nearly 75 years of marriage.

As head of a railroad, Mr. Heineman was to keep their customers in mind. He told Life magazine in 1964, "I do not think people want glamor - they want to train to work and working time The same applies in all areas of transport If I were in the field of aviation, I take .. Champagne and imaginative dishes, but they break their necks to provide aircraft that came and went just in time ".

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01:58 | 0 comments

Dr. James West Dies at 98

James W. West, a surgeon struggle with alcohol led him to develop treatments for addiction and, ultimately, to become medical director of the Betty Ford Center, died July 24 at home in Palm Desert, California was 98.

His death was confirmed by his son Bill.

Dr. West has begun to focus on addiction. In 1950 he attended Dr. Richard H. Lawler and Dr. Raymond P. Murphy in the execution of the first kidney transplant.

The recipient of the organ, a woman named Ruth Tucker 40 years, suffered from polycystic kidney disease. His body rejected the new organ, after several weeks not rejection drugs had been developed - but the transplant will be the moment of his other kidney to start working enough, Dr. West said later that in interviews. Mrs. Tucker lived five years.

Over time, the interests of Dr. West turned to the study and treatment of addiction driven by his own alcoholism.

"There had been a DUI, and he never showed up for surgery under the influence," said John Schwarzlose, president and CEO of the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "I watched him and his colleagues say 'You're not an alcoholic. "He said,' My illness has not played like it did with others who may have problems with alcohol and other drugs, and not the slums. ' ".

Bill West, said his mother, Shirley, had told his father "had to ask for help, and has heard of this."

Dr. West, who had received his medical degree from Loyola University and has begun to study psychiatric disorders and addictions.

He said that at some point, the research showed that nearly one in nine doctors suffered some kind of addiction, and began teaching at the university faculties of psychiatry.

In 1975, he and Msgr. Ignatius McDermott, who worked with the homeless in Chicago, founded Haymarket Center, a treatment plant for non-profit alcoholism and drug addiction.

The West retired to Palm Desert in 1982, but retirement did not last long. This year, Dr. West began as a volunteer in a clinic for outpatients for alcohol abuse in the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage.

Meanwhile, Betty Ford, Former Prime lady who openly fought addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs, and Leonard Firestone, former ambassador to Belgium and the son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, opened the Betty Ford Center. Dr. West joined the staff of the same year.

Mr. Schwarzlose Dr. West described as "medical addiction before the term even existed." He recalled the opening of Dr. West with other doctors about their treatment programs.

"It was not really used the drug, other people were using," said Schwarzlose. "He is the attitude and the look says. '... Is how they treat alcoholics and drug addicts always feel like nobody wants to try make us feel as if you had come to the right place" He said: 'My doctors and nurses to treat people with love. "I know it sounds corny, but the truth."

Dr. West moved to a part-time role in 1989 and retired in 2007.

Ward, James West, was born March 29, 1914, in Chicago. His first wife, the former crew of Shirley, died in 1997. In addition to his son Bill, He is survived by his wife, Maureen Clark, who married in 1998, another son, Raymond, four daughters, Vicky Dingli, Judith West, Pamela Byrne and Penny West, two stepchildren, Marquis Cheryl Clark and sand, a sister, Catherine Ann McClelland, five grandchildren, stepchildren, grandchildren, great grandchildren 04:05.

Dr. West was not a good student in his early years. His parents, when he said he had to repeat his first year in high school, sent to Campion High School, a Jesuit school in Prairie du Chien, Wis.

He attended school in a shelter where he challenges students to plan their careers, and decided to become a doctor.

"Thereafter, it was easy for me to be a doctor," he said in 2003, recalling his experience in retirement. "I was in my mind. Everything else was just an obstacle between you and the DM"

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06:58 | 0 comments

Former Times foreign correspondent Nick Williams Jr. dies at 75

Although Nick B. Williams Jr. would forge a successful career as an editor and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, had first to overcome the "junior" at the end of his name.

I 'joined the newspaper in late 1960, when his father, Nick B. Mr. Williams was editor of the Times, and prestige in this one.

"When Nick Junior has been added to the template, a number of people most cynical - he said. He is the son of the editor What the heck will" It is hoped that if 20 minutes, they discovered it was a great editor and an extraordinary journalist, "George Cotliar, a former executive editor of The Times said Wednesday.

Williams, who was a foreign correspondent for the Times on Southeast Asia and the Middle East in 1980 and 1990, died Wednesday in a house in Gainesville, Texas, from complications of care fromAlzheimer disease, said his daughter Nan. He was 75.

After starting the Metro copy desk at The Times, Williams became an editor of national and foreign banks in 1970 and 1980.

"It was a wonderful editor and popular," said Robert Gibson, editor of Foreign times when Williams Department. "It was very important in their relations with foreign correspondents, who felt they had a sympathetic ear and get your copy of" respect "."

After years in charge of Foreign Affairs, Williams "wanted his chance in the field," said Alvin Shuster, the former Director of Foreign Affairs that the time has been given. "It was a first-class desktop publisher, and I knew it would be a first class correspondent. Some said it was a game of chance, including Nick, but clearly was not."

Between 1985 and 1992, Williams reported the Asian region, while in Bangkok and in the Middle East, Nicosia, Cyprus. When going from an estimated 60% of their time on the road.

"Whether covering the Gulf war or a revolt in the Philippines, the unit was excellent," said Schuster. "He knew exactly what to do, and foreign correspondents did very well."

In an essay of 1992, his experiences in the field, Williams said that "framework" to make scenes that have been engraved in his memory.

Among those who have "the Shia Muslim women in black xador" out of an Iraqi prison, "laments heard screaming and waiting for me that their husbands and children were living inside the high walls that was better than expected.

That His men were imprisoned and not among the thousands of Shiite rebels shot down by military helicopters to Saddam Hussein's helicopter as it has re-established its control over the country. "

That same year, Williams was asked to return to Los Angeles. He was 55 years old and his family said it was "too old to dodge the bullets again." He said his years abroad were the best of his life.

He joined the office of international affairs section to change the World Report on the week and was assistant director of the editorial pages before retiring in 2002 after being diagnosed with withAlzheimer.

Nick Van Boddie Williams Jr. was born on 12 February 1937, in Santa Monica and grew up in Pasadena.

From what is now Claremont McKenna College, he earned a degree in business and married artist Gerri the Bauhaus in 1960. He worked in the newspaper San Diego Union-Sun and Timesbefore theChicago moving to Los Angeles in late 1966 to join the time.

The correspondent also excel in buying, Shuster said: If you are asked "for a plate of blue and white shopping for your next visit to Vietnam, he had a letter full of the history of the cup and costs $ 20 . "

Father Williams, who was editor of The Times 1958-1971, died at 85 in 1992.

Williams survived by his wife, Gerri, of Lake Kiowa, Texas, daughters Maggie Sykes of Lake Kiowa, and Nan Williams, Flat Top, Tennessee, two grandchildren and his sister Sue Williams of Trinidad, California, Ricky Davis and Arcata.

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06:55 | 0 comments

Civic leader John J. Merrick dies at 93

When the Beverly Hills attorney, John J. Merrick was elected judge of the judicial district of Malibu in 1964, was considered only a part-time work: the population of the area stretching from sea to Calabasas does not guarantee full-time municipal judge.

While maintaining his law practice, Merrick cases heard Monday in a small court in Calabasas, which has doubled in a ballroom at night.

He spent the next four days a week, the benchmark in 1930-was the court of Malibu, Pacific Coast Highway.

But it could also be allocated to meet the municipal actions in places as far away as Glendale, Indio, Lancaster and Ventura.

"I was known as' Have Robe, Will Travel," she recalled in a 1986 times.

At present the population of the district court exceeded the necessary 40,000 in 1973 and became Merrick's first municipal court judge of the new Constitution in Malibu, has been handling more than 20,000 cases a year. He stayed on the bench in Malibu until his retirement in 1986.

Merrick, a resident of Malibu since 1940 and a local historian and civic leader, died of pneumonia July 31 at his home in Point Dumas, said his son Brian. He was 93 years.

When Merrick retired after nearly 22 years as a judge in Malibu, Richard Brand, a court commissioner who had worked with him for 12 years, told the Times: "We're losing an institution."

"Many people say that I am a very fair judge," Merrick said the Times in 1986. "I look to see both sides to exercise some compassion and punish those who need it."

Merrick on the bench during the time he signed the order to breach to enter the Spahn Ranch, home of the famous Manson family.

And with 50 MPs warn his court, Merrick presided over the preliminary hearing of Manson family member Susan Atkins, who was accused of the murder of musician Gary Hinman Topanga Canyon.

Merrick had sometimes the heat of some of his decisions in court.

When Topanga Canyon nudist club called Elysée opened in 1960 and a number of people have been arrested on charges of nudity in the context of an ordinance of the county 30 years of age, Merrick said that the ordinance was unconstitutional.

The decision that was upheld by the Court of Appeals of the State, has received wide publicity.

"Despite the fact that I am a deeply religious person who attends Mass every day," said Merrick The Times in 1986: "I was described as a pervert and has received a lot of hate."

As the judge in a show of world-famous enclaves, Merrick has chaired a number of celebrity weddings, including the high profile 1985 marriage of pop singer Madonna and actor Sean Penn on a promontory, Point Dumas.

"There were eight helicopters flying over the shooting on the roof with kids hanging doors, was like 'Apocalypse Now'" recalled Merrick 1986 Times interview. "The three of us knew more or less what we were doing. But all the others not to hear the noise."

As Judge Merrick was known for his sense of humor. "There are many occasions where people are very tense in front of you, and you can break the tension with some humor," he told The Times in 1969.

Those who passed through his classroom always, unintentionally humorous moments.

"I was a busboy for being drunk," said Merrick. "I explained the reasons for the different and then I asked him how he said he replied.. Very guilty, his lordship" "

On another occasion, Merrick asked if the defendant was employed.

"Yes, sir," replied the accused, "I am self employed."

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06:52 | 0 comments

Marvin Hamlisch dies at 68

The film and the Broadway community has lost one of its most successful composer Marvin Hamlisch as strongly on Tuesday has died at 68 after a short unspecified illness.

Perhaps best known for his work in the beloved movie musical A Chorus Line and The Way We Were he and Sting, Hamlisch has also written scores for famous films such as the common people, and Sophie's decision to take the money and run and contribute to the James Bond hit the spy who loved me, co-authored Nobody Does It Better by Carole Bayer Sager.

For his efforts, Hamlisch has won entry into the elite club of artists who have received Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Academy Awards. He has won four Emmy Awards and three Academy Awards, the third for his adaptation of Scott Joplin ragtime music is at the time.

His credits on Broadway, most of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Chorus Line, They're playing our song including, The Goodbye Girl and the sweet taste of success. The final show, although not a critical hit, it was cool to the musical star Kelli O'Hara in her first Broadway role.

Hamlisch was also a prolific arranger and conductor, symphony orchestras across the country. The youngest student accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, began studies there at the age of 7 years he started his career on Broadway as a pianist and vocal arranger assistant test for Funny Girl , starring Barbra Streisand, as would later write in The Way We Were.

His work on Broadway includes arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Liza Minnelli's triumphant return to the palace in 2008 and previous commitments Minnelli on Minnelli (1999) and Liza (1974). He also provided music for the 1984 Shirley MacLaine on Broadway special.

Hamlisch's adaptation of the new movie musical The crazy professor has made its world premiere in July at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. The composer had been scheduled to fly to Nashville this week to see the Broadway production of wheels.

He was working on another musical, well, Gotta Dance, and wrote the soundtrack behind theCandleabra the forthcoming HBO film Liberace. And Hamlisch was to target New York Philharmonic concert on the eve of his next New Year.

While sweeping Hamlisch, shamelessly sentimental style does not always earn rave reviews, seemed satisfied with the popular appeal that much of his music remained for decades.

"I do not think there is nothing wrong in doing very wonderful, wonderful business, entertainment," he said in an interview Broadwayworld.com 2010. "There is nothing wrong with the" business "of the word."

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21:57 | 0 comments

'Cold fusion' co-discoverer Martin Fleischmann dies at 85

British chemist Martin Fleischmann, who surprised the world by announcing that it has obtained nuclear fusion in a glass bottle, has died after a long illness.

His son Nicholas said he died Friday at home in England.

Electrochemistry Fleischmann was one of the leaders in the world when he and his partner Stanley Pons announced in 1989 that had led to the merger, the nuclear process that heats the sun, in an experiment at the University of Utah.

The reaction occurred at room temperature was reported, and seemed to emit little radiation, a huge contrast to the still ongoing search for fusion with conventional means, in billions of dollars of reactors at temperatures of millions of degrees.

The announcement sparked hopes of a shortcut to fusion as a source of clean, renewable energy and economic development.

However, when other scientists were quick to replicate success, no more junk science, and the "cold fusion" was quickly labeled. Physicists Fleischmann accused of incompetence and fraud.

Pons and he continued to work - and defend - their results, but were discouraged by the way their work is ignored by scientists after the disaster of 1989.

"This was a terrible experience," said Fleischmann Telepolis German news site in 2005.

Search the "cold fusion" continues on the shores of the scientific world.

Fleischmann was born in Czechoslovakia. When the Nazis occupied the country in 1938, the family fled to England. To obtain a legal status for the move, Fleischmann was adopted by a British title.

He studied chemistry at Imperial College London and became known for a good knowledge of mathematics and fantasy unusual for a chemist.

He took over the Department of Chemistry, University of Southampton in 1967 and gave him international fame. He was a member of the Royal Society of Great Britain, the Academy of Sciences.

After leaving college, he spent much time working on experiments with his friend Pons, an American.

Fleischmann was a "genius of exploration," said Michael role played a friend of Fleischmann and research professor of physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.

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21:53 | 0 comments

Eagles Coach’s Son Dies at 29 in Training Camp

Garrett Reid, son of Philadelphia Eagles, Andy Reid, coach, was found dead Sunday morning in his bedroom to his training team in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, after a troubled life that included the combating drug use and prison season.

The younger Reid, 29, was unable to resume after police responded to a 911 call on Sunday, and the county coroner, said an investigation was underway. Lehigh University police said they were not involved suspicious activity. No cause of death was given.

According to the team, Andy Reid, has requested that the training camps continue. He did not attend daily team rounds of inspection, which began with a prayer by the players, or practice in the afternoon, but the team owner, Jeffrey Lurie, said Sunday he expects Reid returned to the team this week and be on the bench when the team opened preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the evening.

Garrett Reid had worked with the reports, strength coach of the team during training camp.

"It's a difficult morning for us all in the Eagles family," said general manager Howie Roseman, announcing the death of Garrett Reid after practice in advance. "Garrett grew up with this team, what makes this story even more difficult for us to process."

Later he added: "Personally, we have been with Andy for a long time S has always been strong for us, we will be strong for him now as a father and a friend, we are all sick.". .

Last week, Andy Reid, was unusually relaxed after a morning tour of the field, joking with reporters during a visit fun and a veteran who had befriended during the long recovery from human lesions. Introduction of his 14 seasons with the Eagles, Reid spoke not think the pressure of his work.

Personal travails are, however, was very heavy on Reid and intertwined with their work for at least five years. In 2007, he took a license for five weeks of absence from the Eagles - unusual in a world where coaches are proud to announce that sleep in their offices - and accompanied Garrett to a drug rehabilitation center After Garrett has admitted doing heroin before causing a crash that sent a woman to a hospital.

The day of the accident Garrett, his younger brother Britt pointed a gun at another driver during an incident of road rage on, and they found drugs in his car. Both Reid then spent time in prison, the sentence, the judge has described her family home as "more or less like a drug emporium."

Although Garrett was in prison, was caught smuggling of prescription pills in his cell. According to documents prepared before his conviction by the trial service, Garrett said alcohol and drug abuse began after graduating from high school in 2001. Garrett said in court documents that he began selling drugs in 2002.

"I do not want to be this man who was the son of head coach of the Eagles, who was in poor condition and drugs and overdose and just fell into oblivion," said Garrett of their sentence .

When Andy Reid returned to his absence, told reporters that he believed at least briefly, giving your job because of the difficulty of their children.

"If you say that after a defeat or a victory to make a lot of thought, I'm sure you can add to this," said Reid in 2007. "Yes, go back and reflect on many things."

When the Eagles signed Michael Vick in 2009 after serving a sentence in federal prison for his role in a dogfighting operation, said Reid moved to consider Vick, in part because of a second opportunity offered to their children. Reid and his wife, Tammy, have three children.

Lurie spoke with Reid and Reid said Sunday that he was losing badly and probably missed practice Monday, too.

"Today is one of the toughest days of life," said Lurie. "Andy is a rock-solid man. I think what makes a great coach is his combination of compassion, the emotion and strength. And today, all exhibits.

"It s all have been unthinkable - .. Most of us have suffered the tragedy of our lives Losing a child is unimaginable loss of a child is unimaginable - the pain .."

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01:38 | 0 comments

Columbus Crew says midfielder Kirk Urso has died at 22

COLUMBUS- Columbus Crew midfielder Kirk Urso died during the night, and no cause of death was determined, a county coroner said.

Columbus police were called to a bar around 12:50 on Sunday, and Urso, 22, was transferred from there to Grant Medical Center, sending Columbus reported.

He was pronounced dead at 01:51, Franklin County coroner, said Jan Górniak. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
Marc's team spokesman said that details of Rose's death Urso still being defined.

The crew has issued the following statement Sunday morning: "Although the circumstances of his death Urso are yet to be determined, there will be no further comments at this time our thoughts and prayers of all the Columbus Crew and Hunt Sports Group are the Urso family. this time of need. "

MLS held a minute's silence to Urso, today the two league games.

A program of the League of the Book of the crew and the DC United on Sunday morning has been canceled.
Urso was injured - he had surgery for a hernia-type sports for tendonitis of the adductors June 18 - and

Rosa says she was not with the team for Saturday's 1-0 defeat to DC United in Washington. Urso, 11.5, 175, had been with the rehabilitation specialists in Columbus.

In a profile last month a team of novice crew, Urso said he was frustrated with injuries.

"To go from being collected at the project, and help you start, and then be completely and wounded -. It's really frustrating injuries are just part of (football)," he said.

Born in Lombard, Illinois, Urso had played in the team's North Carolina win the NCAA title last fall, like Ben SPEA Crew forward, and the U.S. U-17 World Cup in 2007.

With the NCAA title, Urso has helped to erase years of frustration for him and other senior UNC.

"My college career has been impressive, but there was something more to this team," said Urso. "On top of
that is something I'll remember the rest of my life."

Urso was the choice in the MLS Draft Supplementary January 10 and started the first five games this season with the midfielder Danny O'Rourke injured.

According to the Facebook page Urso, who was a fan of the Chicago Bulls, Jerry Seinfeld and the FIFA game.

Urso will survive his parents, Michael and Sandra, and his brother.

Among those who responded on Twitter:

• Mia Hamm @ MiaHamm:. "All our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Kirk Urso, friends and teammates heels."

• Philadelphia Union midfielder Freddy Adu @ FreddyAdu. "I just heard the news of the Columbus Crew midfielder Kirk Urso died sad news RIP"

• Staff of teammate Chris @ Biorchall chrisbirchall7. "Sensation of numbness of the death of a great teammate, Kirk Urso 22 last night and a good guy, always smiling every day!"

• Staff of his colleague Eric Gehrig @ eGehrig16 "Locker ... and my neighbor Brotha Chi-Town, Kirk Urso RIP You were a great kid with a bright future is difficult to know and love the man crew96 #".

• Former basketball star Kendall Marshall of North Carolina, the election of the first round of the Phoenix Suns @ KButter5: "The prayers are with the family of Kirk Urso UNC RIP here for you" ..

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01:36 | 0 comments

Adviser to Presidents Paul W. McCracken Dies at 96

Paul W. McCracken, a moderate Republican who served as economic adviser to both Republican and Democratic presidents who led the effort and ineffective President Richard M. Nixon to the rising inflation of the late 1960's and early 1970 to tame, deceased on Friday in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was 96.

His death was announced by the University of Michigan, where he taught for most of his academic career. A great thinker, Mr. McCracken was part of a postwar generation of economists who believed that government should play an active role in moderating economic cycles, balancing inflation and unemployment, and help the disadvantaged.

His nearly three years in the White House coincided with a turbulent period marked by rising deficits, rampant inflation, the imposition of controls on wages and prices, and the distribution of fixed exchange rate system that had dominated the currencies of the world, World War II.

As a result, in early 1980, Mr. McCracken, like other economists, Keynesian in the question of the assumptions which were dominant after the war.

He concluded that the high inflation was the result of "cumulative paralysis our will" and called for greater fiscal discipline to the growth of public expenditure - a subject that still haunt Washington.

"The government has never in the course of 1970 can bring to the first condition for a successful policy of stabilizing prices to meet - namely that its policies simply do not consider" inflation, "Mr. McCracken wrote in 1980.

Indeed, at that time the Federal Reserve, under a new president, Paul A. Volcker, began to sharply increase interest rates, producing back-to-back recession in 1980 and 1982, which eventually broke the back of inflation, but cost painfully high unemployment.

Paul Winston McCracken was born December 29, 1915, in Richland, Iowa. His father, a farmer, and his uncle, economics teacher, encouraged him to study economics at William Penn College (now University) in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He graduated in 1937 and then taught for three years at Berea College in Kentucky, where he met Ruth Emily Siler, a student teacher.

They married in 1942, the same year that Mr. McCracken received a master's degree in economics from Harvard and went to work at the Ministry of Commerce in Washington. From 1943 to 1948 he was researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the completion of a doctorate, also at Harvard. Then the faculty at what is now the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Mr. McCracken was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight D. 1956-1959 Eisenhower. He unsuccessfully argued for a tax reduction for a severe recession in 1957-58 caused, and said later that the administration hands-off approach to the economy had helped to lead to another recession, in 1960-61, and the cost Nixon , Eisenhower's vice president, presidential elections of 1960.

As a professor, Mr. McCracken served two Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy, a member of a task force for the domestic economy, and Lyndon B. Johnson as part of a committee on the budget accounts.

After winning the elections of 1968, Mr. McCracken Nixon a meeting in New York. He asked the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, Mr. McCracken said he would call his wife, but Nixon replied: "I have a press conference in a few minutes, and I have not much to say Why not just there to to announce. " .

The chairman, Mr. McCracken described as "a centrist, a man who is pragmatic in its economy."

Working for Nixon, Mr. McCracken was facing an inflation rate which had risen since 1965, a byproduct of the deficits that the federal government had gained during the Vietnam War.

In a speech in August of 1969, said that the inflation "caused considerable social and economic" and "has a social disintegration through its tendency to escalate tensions in the group."

He also called for extending unemployment insurance, labor training, the poor exempt from federal taxes and improving public transport reorganization - the positions that the dominant liberal consensus of the time display.

Mr. McCracken was a compromise between the directors of Johnson, who had invited him to fine-tuning "fiscal policy for regulating the economy, and the conservative, laissez-faire approach of the Chicago school, led by Milton Friedman.

The Mr. McCracken was the architect of a policy of gradualism, which has sought to slow inflation, with growth a bit, without a recession.

He hoped to slow price increases through a combination of a budget surplus, Johnson proposed as an additional tax is renewed and tighter monetary policy of the Fed, which would reduce speculation in the stock market and the wage demands of unions.

He warned the government not to "lock brakes so badly that the economy would be thrown into the ditch."

But the prices continue to rise despite a recession in 1969-70, and by mid-1970 Nixon had directed the Board of warnings of inflation to be issued "," identifying what Mr. McCracken later called "flagrant" of " inflation, including a big jump in taxi fares in New York City.

After an important weekend in the presidential retreat of Camp David, Nixon decided to wage and price controls to be imposed for the first time since the Korean War.

He has also unilaterally ended the Bretton Woods system, which the United States has agreed to sell gold to foreign governments in exchange for dollars at fixed exchange rates.

Controls were popular and probably a factor in Nixon's landslide reelection in 1972, Mr. McCracken said.

But the checks proved untenable, as Mr McCracken had warned in 1969, when he said they were "much less effective than many are now inclined to believe." They were abandoned in 1974. "Stagflation", a devastating combination of weak growth and high inflation, the U.S. economy continues to besiege until 1980.

Mr. McCracken further argued that gradualism worked ", but are slow and irregular and the political demands were not compatible." In fact, price controls presumably "strengthened and extended" inflation of 1970, wrote in an essay in 1996 Presidential Studies Quarterly.

Mr. McCracken back to Michigan in late 1971. Edmund Ezra Day was Distinguished Professor of Business Administration until his retirement in 1986.

He leaves two daughters, Linda and Paula Langer McCracken. His wife died in 2005.

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TV producer Joan Stein dies at 59

Joan Stein, a Tony award winning theater and television producer who helped launch some long-term in Los Angeles theater productions, including "Love Letters", "Forever" Plaid Steve Martin and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" is dead. He was 59 years.

Stein died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. A resident of Hollywood, was diagnosed four weeks ago with a rare type of cancer that affects the appendix, said her husband, Ted Weiant.

In 1999, Stein won a Tony Award as a producer of "Side Man" Broadway play, a drama set in the jazz world after the war. His other recent credits include producing the Broadway musical "Catch Me If You Can" and "9 to 5" and the 2002 revival of "The Elephant Man".

Stein and his producer partner, Susan Dietz, directed the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills for 10 years. His first success was A.R. Gurney "Love Letters", which opened in 1990, and a rotating cast of celebrities. While Canon, Stein Laird has also produced "Forever Plaid" and Joel Paley and Marvin Stuart Ross musical parody of "ruthless!"

Stein left the Canon in 2000 to pursue a career in television and the theater closed in 2004.

"The enjoyment and we did a good job. She was a sister to me these 10 years," said Dietz.

Stein was also producer of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which opened in 1994 at the Westwood Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse now. Martin's work, which establishes a link between the artist and Albert Einstein at a bar in Paris, became a hit and ran over 300 performances.

"People say, 'You can not earn a living theater in Los Angeles,'" Stein told the Times in 1995 amid the success, "Picasso." 'Good', all dressed up in my office, driving a car, pay the rent. They are making a living in theater. "

After leaving the Canon Theatre, Stein created a television production company with Martin have collaborated on several projects.

Stein recent theater projects such as "Motherhood Out Loud", which took place in the primary stages of New York and the Geffen Playhouse in 2011 with the title "In the words of the Mother." He also produced "standing for the ceremony," a series of works on gay marriage, which took place in Largo Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles.

Her stage career includes a stint as the CEO of Berkshire Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.

Stein was born June 7, 1953 in New York. He graduated from State University of New York at Albany, after majoring in English.

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Maker of water-drop tanks William H. 'Bill' Mensing dies at 88.jpg-20120802

William H. "Bill" Mensing, owner of a commercial aircraft sheet metal the best drop of water tanks to helicopters to the Los Angeles Fire Department in early 1970, he published, he is dead. He was 88.

Mensing died July 26 at home in Santa Paula, after a brief illness, his family said.

A veteran of World War II, Mensing opened a business called Precision sheet metal Sheetcraft Northridge in 1960 and became known for his ability to make new parts for damaged planes and helicopters.

In 1970, he was offered a different type of work by Los Angeles County Fire Department, which in 1957 had been a pioneer in the use of water tanks fall into the bellies of helicopters fire.

Reconstructors aircraft, the company that had tanks for firefighters, was no longer in business and the Department wanted to replicate the business of the last tank Mensing.

Working with Doug Matthews, director of the helicopter fire, Mensing made a series of innovative changes in the tanks of 360 liters, began production for the department.

"When Mensing understood, we have continued to improve," the now retired Mathews, recalled Thursday. "He came with a lot of ideas, but came up with some ideas."

Mensing has not only made the Gavarra-tank to internal changes, but they change a tank of a single drop of a drop-tank separation: instead the pilot drop the whole load of water , can be downloaded half a load at once.

"It's commonly known as the tank or tank Sheetcraft Los Angeles," said Mathews, adding that the U.S. Forest Service, the State of California, Los Angeles City Fire Department and the Ventura County Department Firefighters are among the most Mensing later began using tanks.

"He was a pioneer in the production of helicopter drop water tank and did a great job improving," said Mathews.

During the next 30 years, the product has come to dominate the activities Sheetcraft Mensing, with its tanks in use as far as Sardinia, Italy, China and South Korea.

Mensing, who has moved his operation from Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, Santa Paula Airport in 1975, he retired a few years ago.

He was born April 25, 1924, in Calexico, and later moved with his family in North Hollywood.

After graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the Navy and spent most of his time of service as aviation mechanic. After his release in 1948, he attended the School of Mechanical Mensing Aviation in Glendale California.

Leaves his wife, Alice, his children, Lisa Morgan, Kelly Mensing, Mindy Foley, Robert Moore and Barbra Mensing, her sister Prudence Safady, 19 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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