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Benedict, actor in 'The Jeffersons,' dies at 70
Dec. 4, 2008, 5:15 PM EST

BOSTON (AP) -- Paul Benedict, the actor who played the English neighbor Harry Bentley on the sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died. He was 70.

Benedict was found dead Monday on Martha's Vineyard and his brother, Charles, said authorities were still investigating the cause of death.

Benedict began his acting career in the 1960s in the Theatre Company of Boston, alongside such future stars as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino.

Benedict went on to appear in a number of movies, including a role as the oddball director in "The Goodbye Girl" with Richard Dreyfuss. But he was mainly known for his role as Bentley in "The Jeffersons," which ran on CBS from 1975 to '85.

Actor Van Johnson, '40s heartthrob, dies at 92
Dec. 12, 2008, 2:41 PM EST


NEW YORK (AP) -- Van Johnson, whose boy-next-door wholesomeness made him a popular Hollywood star in the '40s and '50s with such films as "30 Seconds over Tokyo," "A Guy Named Joe" and "The Caine Mutiny," died Friday of natural causes. He was 92.

Johnson died at Tappan Zee Manor, an assistant living center in Nyack, N.Y., said Wendy Bleisweiss, a close friend.

With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.

He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies ("The Bride Goes Wild," "Too Young to Kiss"), war movies ("Go for Broke," "Command Decision"), musicals ("Thrill of a Romance," "Brigadoon") and dramas ("State of the Union," "Madame Curie").

During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy. He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in "30 Seconds Over Tokyo." He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in "The Last Time I Saw Paris." He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in "The Romance of Rosy Ridge."

More recently, he had a small role in 1985 as a movie actor in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo."

A heartthrob with bobbysoxers — he was called "the non-singing Sinatra" — Johnson married only once. In 1947 at the height of his career, he eloped to Juarez, Mexico, to marry Eve Wynn, who had divorced Johnson's good friend Keenan Wynn four hours before.

The marriage produced a daughter, Schuyler, and ended bitterly 13 years later. "She wiped me out in the ugliest divorce in Hollywood history," Johnson told reporters.

As a young actor, Johnson had a brief run with Warner Bros. and then got a screen test and a contract with MGM with the help of his friend Lucille Ball.

After a bit in "The War Against Mrs. Hadley," Johnson appeared with Lionel Barrymore as "Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant," as Mickey Rooney's friend in "The Human Comedy" and as a Navy pilot in "Pilot No. 5."

His big break, with Irene Dunne and Spencer Tracy in the wartime fantasy "A Guy Named Joe," was almost wiped out by tragedy.

On April 1, 1943, his DeSoto convertible was struck head-on by another car. "They tell me I was almost decapitated, but I never lost consciousness," he remembered. "I spent four months in the hospital after they sewed the top of my head back on. I still have a disc of bone in my forehead five inches long."

"A Guy Named Joe" was postponed for his recovery, and the forehead scar went unnoticed in his resulting popularity. MGM cashed in on his stardom with three or four films a year. Among them: "The White Cliffs of Dover," "Two Girls and a Sailor," "Weekend at the Waldorf." "High Barbaree," "Mother Is a Freshman," "No Leave No Love" and "Three Guys Named Mike."

Though he hadn't lost his boyish looks, Johnson's vogue faded by the mid-'50s, and the film roles became sparse, though he did have a "comeback" movie with Janet Leigh in 1963, "Wives and Lovers."

Also in the 1960s he returned to the theater, playing "Damn Yankees" in summer theaters at $7,500 a week. Then he accepted a two-year contract to star in "The Music Man" in London.

He explained why in an interview: "Because the phone didn't ring. Because the film scripts were getting crummier and crummier. Because I sat beside my pool in Palm Springs one day and told myself: `Van, you'll be 45 this year. If you don't start doing something now, you never will.'"

For three decades he was one of the busiest stars in regional and dinner theaters, traveling throughout the country from his New York base. In the 1980s, Johnson appeared on Broadway in "La Cage aux Folles," late in the run of the popular Jerry Herman msuical.

"The white-haired ladies who come to matinees are the people who put me on top," he said in a 1992 in Michigan, where he was appearing at a suburban Detroit theater. "I'm still grateful to them." Television provided some gigs ("The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island" and "McMillan & Wife"), and he also became a painter, his canvases selling as high as $10,000. In a 1988 interview, he told of an important art lesson:

"I was on the Onassis yacht with Winston Churchill. He got his canvas out and so did I. He was working away, and he growled at me, `Don't just sit there and stare! Get some paint and splash it on!'"

He was born Charles Van Dell Johnson on Aug. 25, 1916, in Newport, R.I., where his father was a real estate salesman. From his earliest years he was fascinated by the touring companies that played in Newport theaters, and after high school he announced his intention to try his luck in New York. He arrived in 1934 with $5 and his belongings packed in a straw suitcase.

Johnson's tour of casting offices landed him nothing but chorus jobs. He went to Hollywood for a bit in the movie of "Too Many Girls," then was signed to a Warner Bros. contract.

"First the zenith, then the nadir," Johnson recalled. "Warner Bros. dropped me after `Murder in the Big House.'"

The discouraged young actor was about to return to New York when Ball, whom he knew on "Too Many Girls," invited him to dinner at Chasen's restaurant.

"Lucille tried to cheer me up, but I just couldn't seem to laugh," he said in a 1963 interview. "Suddenly she said to me, `There's Billy Grady over there; he's MGM's casting director. I'm going to introduce you, and at least you're going to act like you're the star I think you will be.'"

In Memoriam

Paul Newman, Sept. 26, age 83: Film fans -- and just about everyone else -- were in deep mourning upon hearing of the loss of screen great Paul Newman, who died of lung cancer. It wasn't just Newman's matinee idol looks, or his flinty, magnetic talent that earned him an Oscar plus nine nominations. It was the sense that he lived a live worth living, with a deeply loving marriage, to devoted wife Joanne Woodward, and strong family connections to all of his children. And his quiet determination to raise millions of dollars for charity and give away with little fanfare, especially to his beloved Hole in the Wall Gang camps (while making pretty darn great salad dressing in the meantime). Newman was a Hollywood giant, yet embraced a real, humor-laced, and grounded life. And while we will always be able to savor his performances in films like "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and many more, we know no one will ever be able to take his place in our hearts. How can we settle for hamburger when we've had steak?

Don LaFontaine, Sept. 1, age 68: In a world where trailers had to grab audiences by the collar, Don LaFontaine roamed and ruled. The famed voiceover actor, who made the phrase "in a world where" a household name, lent his talents to upward of 3,000 film trailers, and was oft imitated but never duplicated. His was one of pop culture's most recognized voices. In one of his rare onscreen appearances, he lampooned himself in a series of Geico car insurance commercials in 2006 ("in a world where both of our cars were under water ..."), and insisted he didn't care that he was largely unknown. He averaged up to 10 voiceover sessions a day, and worked up until his death after a long illness.


Barry Morse, Feb. 2, age 89: Born in England, Morse was a talented actor best known in the U.S. for his role in the TV series "The Fugitive." He began his career in England in the theater, then moved into radio and film roles. He worked steadily in TV, including roles in the miniseries "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance," but is best known for his role in the '60s as the tenacious Lt. Philip Gerard in "The Fugitive," opposite David Janssen. He also continued working in the theater, as artistic director of the Shaw Festival in Canada in the '60s, and as a professor at Yale University. His 2007 memoir is titled "Remember With Advantages: Chasing 'The Fugitive' and Other Stories from an Actor's Life."

In Memoriam

Tim Russert, June 13, age 58: When veteran NBC TV journalist and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert suddenly collapsed and died at work this summer, the shock was palpable, and the heartfelt tributes poured in for days. President Bush said the world had "lost a really fine American. ... Tim Russert loved his country, he loved his family and he loved his job a lot, and we're going to miss him." Besides his thorough, respected interviews on "Meet the Press" every Sunday, Russert wrote two best-sellers, "Big Russ & Me" in 2004 and "Wisdom of Our Fathers" in 2006. He was awarded 48 honorary doctorates, and won an Emmy for his coverage of the funeral of Ronald Reagan in 2005. In the words of Walter Cronkite, Russert's passing was "a tragic loss for journalism and for all who were privileged to know him."

George Carlin, June 22, age 71: Carlin was flinty and fearless, and ushered in an unflinching era in stand-up comedy. He joked about drugs and the counterculture, and became a hero to them, even as he sent up hippiedom. Among his best-known bits were "The Hippy Dippy Weatherman," who forecast "Tonight: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning." He also had a (still-unprintable) memorable bit, the "Seven Dirty Words" that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court case, which unfortunately didn't find for Carlin and his ability to say those words on public radio. He was a frequent host and guest on "The Tonight Show," toured tirelessly and recorded frequent comedy specials, the last of which, "It's Bad for Ya," aired this past March on HBO. In November, Carlin was to become the first posthumous recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. And somehow, one thinks Twain would have loved most of Carlin's material: "Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof ... and gets stuck."

Isaac Hayes, Aug. 10, age 65: The king of "Hot Buttered Soul" created the grooving soundtrack to the '70s and beyond. A gifted songwriter, he wrote hits like "Soul Man" for Sam & Dave, and also had his own prolific recording career, often reinventing pop songs (like Burt Bacharach tunes) with his own Southern R&B take. In 1971, his soundtrack, and theme song, for the film "Shaft" gave him worldwide fame. In the '90s he earned a whole new generation of fans when he appeared on "South Park," as Chef, a gig that lasted several seasons, until 2006. Hayes reportedly quit the show after it lampooned Scientology, to which Hayes had converted in the mid-'90s, although later Hayes said that that had not been the reason he left. Happily, his gorgeous, golden music will live on. Can ya dig it?

In Memoriam

Richard Wright, Sept. 15, age 65: The longtime Pink Floyd keyboardist may not have been as flashy as bandmates David Gilmour or Roger Waters, but it was Wright's intensive musicality that was seen as a major influence of the band's signature sound, from its earliest days. Wright met Waters at university, and was a founding member of the band in 1965. His work shaped the band's groundbreaking disc, "Dark Side of the Moon" (1973), which also featured two of Wright's own songs, "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Us and Them." Friction with Waters led Wright to leave the band in the early '80s, though he joined them as a session player for several recordings, and explored solo projects throughout the '80s and '90s. In 2005, Wright rejoined his bandmates onstage in London for Live 8, the first concert featuring the full band in years. Upon his death, Gilmour paid tribute: "He was gentle, unassuming and private, but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognized Pink Floyd sound. ... I have never played with anyone quite like him."

Sydney Pollack, May 26, age 73: "Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act," said actor George Clooney, who acted with Pollack in last year's "Michael Clayton." Truer words were never spoken. Pollack was comfortable as an actor, and continued performing until he was diagnosed with cancer about nine months before his death. But it was as a director that he made his biggest impression, from "This Property Is Condemned," starring his friend and frequent star Robert Redford, in 1966, to the magnificent romance "The Way We Were" and "Out of Africa" (the latter of which won Pollack his two Oscars), to the gender-bending comedy "Tootsie," which Pollack directed and in which he co-starred with Dustin Hoffman. He was well-liked in Hollywood, and was married to his wife, Claire, for nearly 50 years. A tip of the hat, indeed, to a class act.

Richard Widmark, March 24, age 93: Widmark, who had been a talented and busy radio actor for years, created such a sensation in his first major film role -- as a sadistic, ghoulish thug in 1947's "Kiss of Death" -- that he became a film star overnight, and for that role was nominated for his first and only Oscar. But it was just the beginning of a brilliant career that included such films as "The Alamo," "Judgment at Nuremberg," "Cheyenne Autumn" and "Madigan," which spawned the 1972 NBC series of the same name. Tough on screen, Widmark was a sweet, mild man in real life, married to his college sweetheart, the playwright Jean Hazelton, for 55 years, until her death in 1997 (he married Susan Blanchard in 1999, and she survives him). The New York Times reported that he once said, "The older you get, the less you know about acting, but the more you know about what makes the really good actors." Amen.

In Memoriam

Mr. Blackwell, Oct. 19, age 86: The self-appointed arbiter of global style became known for his annual "best-dressed" and, more importantly, "worst-dressed" celebrities lists. No one was safe from his entertainingly fearless descriptions, including such so-called fashion icons as Victoria Beckham, who topped his list this year. Over the years, he savaged Elizabeth Taylor ("the rebirth of the zeppelin"), Elke Sommer ("Do-it-yourself kit with the wrong instructions") and Queen Elizabeth of England ("from Her Majesty to Her Travesty"). Born Richard Seltzer, Blackwell actually did start his own fashion business, in the 1950s, and had moderate success. But as he wrote in his memoir, "From Rags to Bitches" (1995), design was never his first love; critiquing celebrities was. He once said the whole endeavor was tongue-in-cheek: "The list has whimsy," he told the Los Angeles Times. "It's camp." With claws.

Paul Scofield, March 19, age 86: Scofield, an imposing Britain-born actor, always loved theater first and foremost, but it was his film portrayal in 1966's "A Man for All Seasons," as Sir Thomas More, that earned him both a best actor Oscar and his place in Hollywood film history. Time magazine captured the essence of Scofield's incredible performance: "With a kind of weary magnificence, Scofield sinks himself into the part, studiously underplays it, and somehow displays the inner mind of a man destined for sainthood." In later years, Scofield made rare but memorable appearances in film, including "Quiz Show" in the 1990s. Throughout his career, he worked tirelessly on stage, including a memorable turn as Salieri in "Amadeus." Actor Richard Burton once said, "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's."

LeRoi Moore, Aug. 19, age 46: Moore played saxophone in the Dave Matthews Band since the time he first met Matthews in Charlottesville, Va., in 1991. Though classically trained, Moore often said it was jazz and African rhythms that he was most drawn to, and those influences clearly shaped the DMB's signature sound. Moore was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident at his farm in Virginia in June, and ultimately died from complications of his injuries. The silence has been haunting.

Larry Harmon, July 3, age 83: Harmon was the comic genius who turned Bozo the Clown into a national franchise and phenomenon, playing the clown himself for more than 50 years. Though Harmon wasn't the first Bozo, he had the idea to license, or clone "BTC" (Bozo the Clown) to markets in different cities. In a 1996 interview, Harmon said of the appeal of the character, "Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us." And after his death, his wife of 29 years, Susan, said, "He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody. He was the love of my life." Talk about leaving big shoes to fill.

In Memoriam

Harvey Korman, May 29, age 81: Korman was beloved as a longtime member of Carol Burnett's sketch comedy troupe on "The Carol Burnett Show" in the '60s and '70s, as well as for his fearless, shticky performance as Hedley Lamarr in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." Korman paired with Burnett memorably in send-ups of "Gone With the Wind," where he played an unctuously clueless Rhett Butler, and the soap "As the World Turns" (called "As the Stomach Turns"). Brooks paid the ultimate tribute to him, telling The Associated Press upon hearing of Korman's death, "A world without Harvey Korman — it's a more serious world. It was very dangerous for me to work with him, because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."


Buddy Miles, Feb. 26, age 60: The legendary drummer helped form the backbeat of the 1960s, in bands like Mike Bloomfield's short-lived Electric Flag. In 1968, he began his seminal relationship with Jimi Hendrix, who produced the first album of Miles' own band, the Buddy Miles Express. Over the next several years, Miles would partner with Hendrix on both men's projects, including Hendrix's groundbreaking Band of Gypsies. Miles' other great working relationships over the years included Carlos Santana, Bootsy Collins and, later, Phish. He also contributed vocals to the '80s California Raisins commercial, singing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." When interviewed by music publication Seconds in 1995, Miles said, "People say I'm the baddest drummer. If that's true, thank you, world." No, thank you, Buddy.

Evelyn Keyes, July 4, age 91: One of the last surviving major cast members of "Gone With the Wind," Keyes, who played Scarlett's sister Suellen, was showbiz royalty, onscreen and off. She was married to George Vidor, John Huston, and band leader Artie Shaw, and had many other high-profile romances. She helped her longtime boyfriend Mike Todd finance "Around the World in 80 Days," but then Todd dumped her for Elizabeth Taylor. Later, Keyes was philosophical, saying in a 1977 interview, "Oh well, nothing lasts forever ... the good part was that I invested all my money in 'Around the World in 80 Days,' and that set me up for life." Keyes appeared in "The Al Jolson Story," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" and a slew of B pictures, but she was most known and beloved for "Gone With the Wind," which was the inspiration behind her two memoirs, "Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister" and "I'll Think About It Tomorrow." For that, we thank you, Miss Suellen.

d**k Martin (right), May 24, age 86: d**k Martin was best known for his role on the '60s smash TV hit "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," but in fact, he and sidekick Dan Rowan went back to the early '50s as a comedy radio duo. Martin also acted on TV, including stints on "The Dean Martin Show," which led to the 1968 debut of "Laugh-In," which changed prime-time TV forever, with its double entendres, political jabs and psychedelic nods to pop culture. The ensemble cast, including Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Jo Anne Worley and Arte Johnson, made the whole experience a "happening," as was this year's Emmy reunion of surviving cast members, in tribute to the passing of Rowan and Martin. Will we miss that rapid-fire comic sensation? You bet your sweet bippy.