Muckraking author Jessica Mitford, 78, whose best-known book, 1963's The American Way of Death, prompted a federal investigation of the funeral industry, died of lung cancer on July 23 at her home in Oakland. Born to titled British parents, Mitford came to the U.S. in 1939 and became a writer at age 38. Although American Way blasted the costly practices of undertakers, Mitford once joked that she wanted an elaborate funeral with "six black horses with plumes and one of those marvelous jobs of embalming that take 20 years off."...
Veteran character actor Herb Edelman, 62, remembered for his wisecracking role as Bea Arthur's ex-husband Stanley on the 1985-92 NBC comedy The Golden Girls, died of emphysema on July 21 at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif. Edelman also played Murray the cop in the 1968 movie version of The Odd Couple and appeared in 1973's The Way We Were and 1978's California Suite....
Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, 61, a Roman Catholic priest held hostage by Islamic rebels in Lebanon for 18 months in 1985 and 1986, died of pancreatic and lung cancer in Hillside, Ill., on July 19, one week before the 10th anniversary of his release. Jenco had shared a 12-by-15-foot room with former Associated Press Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson and two other prisoners....
Anne Hummert, 91, who helped develop radio soap operas in the 1930s and '40s, died of undisclosed causes on July 5 at her home in New York City. With her husband, advertising executive E. Frank Hummert, who died in 1966, the onetime newspaper reporter created classic daytime serials such as Just Plain Bill and Stella Dallas. By 1939 the Hummerts were churning out story lines for 18 different 15-minute soaps, which brought in more than half the advertising revenues then generated by daytime radio....
Mystery writer Collin Wilcox, 71, died of cancer at his San Francisco home on July 12. Since 1967, Wilcox had written some 30 books, including Hire a Hangman and Long Way Down....
Piano-playing bluesman Roosevelt Thomas Williams, 92, known fondly as the Grey Ghost, died July 17 of undisclosed causes in Austin, Texas. Williams, who rose to prominence with his composition "Hitler Blues" during World War II, got his nickname by showing up for gigs at the last minute and slipping out right afterward....
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Vermont Connecticut Royster, 82, a former editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal, died July 22 in Raleigh, N.C., after a long illness. Throughout his 50-year career at the Journal, Royster was known for his warmth, simplicity and knack for putting current events into historical perspective.
Police booked actor Robert Downey Jr., 31, for the third time in less than a month on July 20 after he left a Marina Del Rey, Calif., drug rehabilitation program where he had been sent as a condition of bail following an earlier arrest for trespassing and being under the influence of a controlled substance.
British soul singer Lisa Stansfield, 30, is engaged to marry Ian Devaney, 31, her longtime producer, in the fall. It will be the second marriage for Stansfield, the first for Devaney....
After a two-year on-again, off-again courtship, funnyman Jim Carrey, 34, and his real-life leading lady, actress Lauren Holly, 32, appear not to be kidding when they say it's on-again for good. "Lauren is my proof and my reward, not to mention a fantastic beard to conceal my raging homosexual lifestyle," Carrey joked in a press statement after his July 21 proposal. It will be the second marriage for both.
Country music legend Merle Haggard, 59, is recuperating in Nashville following angioplasty at a hospital there on July 17 to open a blocked artery.
Home Improvement's Tool Time girl Debbe Dunning, 29, and her fiancé, pro volleyball player Steve Timmons, 37, are expecting their first child in December. They plan to marry next May.
Former thirtysomething costar Timothy Busfield, 39, was ordered by a Los Angeles judge on July 17 to pay nearly $150,000 in attorneys' fees to a Minneapolis law firm that he had sued unsuccessfully for defamation, claiming it had concocted sexual assault charges against him. The firm, Messerli & Kramer, represented a teenage girl who accused the actor of sexually assaulting her on the set of his 1993 movie Little Big League, on which she worked as an extra. Busfield, who later settled with the teenager out of court for an undisclosed amount, has filed an appeal....
Actor Sean Connery, 65, filed a writ for damages against Hair International July 17 in London, calling the magazine's claim that he had endorsed a hair restorative product a "malicious falsehood."
Former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, 68, began serving a 17-month prison sentence for mail fraud on July 22 at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn. The Chicago Democrat, who was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson in April after he admitted to paying district employees for personal services with government funds, underwent surgery for prostate cancer in May. His medical condition will be evaluated at the prison hospital....
A Newark, N.J., judge sentenced Eric Douglas, 38, youngest of veteran actor Kirk Douglas's four sons, to 30 days in jail on July 16 for disrupting a Continental Airlines flight from L.A. to Newark in March. Douglas had been jailed a day earlier for leaving a court-imposed drug treatment program.
Pro basketball and Olympic Dream Team star Shaquille O'Neal, 24, and his fiancée, Arnetta (no further information available), welcomed their first child, daughter Taheara (weight unavailable), on July 19 in Orlando, according to The Washington Post. Just hours earlier, O'Neal had announced he was leaving Orlando, where he had played with the NBA's Magic, after signing a seven-year, $121 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers....
Grammy-winning R&B producer Jimmy "Jam" Harris, 37, must have been thinking ahead when he cowrote, with partner Terry Lewis, the tune "Atlanta's Welcome to the World" for the July 19 Summer Olympics opening ceremonies. Wife Lisa, 31, gave birth to an 8-lb. boy, Tyler James, at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Minneapolis on July 21....
Mountain climber Rob Hall, 35, trapped by a blizzard near the summit of Mount Everest in May, was able to speak briefly via a phone and radio link with wife Jan Arnold, 32, shortly before dying of frostbite and exposure. On July 21, Arnold provided a postscript, giving birth to a 9-lb. 4-oz. girl, Sarah, in Christchurch, N. Z....
Judging from their newborn's celestial name, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, 36, and girlfriend Paula Yates, 36, were on cloud nine after the birth of their 6-lb. 14-oz. daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tigerlily, in London on July 22. Yates has three other children—Fifi Trixibelle, 13, Peaches, 7, and Pixie, 5—with her ex-husband, rocker and fund-raiser Bob Geldof.
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