Tough-guy film director Don Siegel, 78, whose 35 feature films included the science-fiction cult classic Invasion of the Body Switchers (1956) and Clint Eastwood's career-making Dirty Harry (1971), died on April 20 of cancer, in Nipomo, Calif. Siegel, who started off in Hollywood as a film librarian at Warner Bros., became a director of B movies in the 1950s before moving up to big pictures such as Coogan's Bluff (1968), The Beguiled (1971) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979), all with Eastwood, and The Shootist (1976), John Wayne's final movie....
Steve Marriott, 44, a guitarist and lead singer for such classic rock bands as the Small Faces and Humble Pie, died on April 20 during a fire at his home in Essex. England. The 5-foot-tall Marriott, a former child actor, formed the Small Faces (so named because lour band members were diminutive) in 1965 and lour years later founded Humble Pie with guitar whiz Peter Frampton. Marriott, who spent the past decade playing with pub bands, was planning a comeback at the time of his death and had just completed a two-week recording session with Frampton....
Jack Yellen, 97, a lifelong Republican who wrote the words for the Democratic theme song Happy Days Are Here Again, died on April 17 in Springville, N.Y. The lyricist for some 130 songs, Yellen wrote Happy Days in 1929 with composer Milton Ager. The tune became Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign song in the 1932 presidential election and has been played at major Democratic functions ever since....
Fiction writer Sean O'Faolain, 91, whose masterful short stories included humorous and ironic evocations of the people and politics of his native Ireland, died on April 20, after a short illness, in Dublin.
Actors Kevin Kline, 43, and Phoebe Cates, 27, married for two years, expect their first child this fall. Due to her pregnancy, Cates has withdrawn from the Elizabeth Taylor part in a remake of the 1950 classic Father of the Bride....
Actor-director Robert Townsend, 33, and his wife, ex—real estate agent Sheri Jones, 32, expect their first child in September. "I'm already at home practicing saying, 'Don't touch this' and 'Don't touch that,' " says Townsend, star of The Five Heartbeats.
Multitalented British comedienne Tracey Ullman, 31, is having a cow. She is suing Fox Television because Fox's animated hit series The Simpsons was a spinoff from her now-defunct Tracey Ullman Show. Ullman claims that she contractually deserves 10 percent of the cowa-bundle (an estimated $750 million last year) that the network is making off merchandise featuring Bart and his gang.
John Fogerty, 45, co-founder of the rockabilly band Creedence Clearwater Revival, was married on April 20 to Julie Lebiedzinski in Bristol, Ind., near her hometown. The two met five years ago when he played in nearby Indianapolis. It is the second marriage for both.
Lorne Michaels, 44, impresario at NBC's Saturday Night Live, is marrying his assistant, Alice Barn, in the spring in Paris. It's the third marriage for Michaels and the first for Barry.
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