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Throughout Rear Adm. George “Steve” Morrison's naval career, officers and their wives used to gather in his family's living room for songfests that lasted well into the night. Sometimes the three Morrison children watched from the top of the stairs. “He would sit down at the piano and play” near his wife, the vivacious Clara, said their daughter, Anne Chewning of Thousand Oaks. “They had a lot of fun, and they met a lot of interesting people.” A collage of photos in Rear Adm. Morrison's Coronado home shows the admiral – who died Nov. 17 of natural causes at age...

Farewell, Dean Posted by: Hugh Hewitt My friend and colleague Dean Barnett died today, and the world is a much poorer place for it. As anyone who listened to him on my radio show or read his work at Soxblog, here or at the Weekly Standard knows, and as everyone who had the great, great pleasure of knowing Dean will attest, Dean's combination of sparking intelligence and enormous good humor made him one fo the most memorable of friends. What too few people know, though, is what a kind, extraordinarily giving and compassionate man he was. Dean loved people and...

Edie Adams died today at the age of 81. Younger readers of this blog will not remember her, but I do. She was a singer (a Julliard alum, no less), a Tony-winning and Emmy-nominated actress, and the wife of TV comedy pioneer Ernie Kovacs. She was also one of the most beautiful and sexy stars to ever grace screen and stage, and (from all accounts; we never met) a truly good person. Those Americans who were raised by television as I was will probably recall Edie Adams most easily as the long-time TV pitchwoman for Muriel Cigars. (Yes, I am...

LOS ANGELES - Dave Freeman, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home. He was 47. Freeman died Aug. 17 after the fall at his Venice home, his father, Roy Freeman, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. An advertising agency executive, Freeman co-wrote the 1999 book subtitled "Travel Events You Just Can't Miss" with Neil Teplica. It was based on the Web site whatsgoingon.com, which the pair ran together from 1996 to 2001. "This...

Tony Snow, Former White House Press Secretary and FOX News Anchor, Dies at 53 July 12, 2008 Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, has died after a long bout with cancer. He was 53. A syndicated columnist, editor, TV anchor, radio show host and musician, Snow worked in nearly every medium in a career that spanned more than 30 years. Snow joined FOX in 1996 as the original anchor of FOX News Sunday, and hosted Weekend Live and a...

First time poster and proud to join the community of Free Republic. I've been lurking for about a year now and know that a lot of you's are fans of Stargate SG1. Don Davis who played General George Hammond died on June 29th of a massive heart attack. He played a better General in fiction that those in the real world such Ret General Weasley Clark. RIP Hammond of Texas. You can post tributes to General Hammond on Gateworld.

Bob Anderson, who played George Bailey as a young boy in the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life," has died. He was 75. Anderson died Friday of cancer at his home in Palm Springs, his wife, Victoria, said Saturday. Robert J. Anderson grew up in Hollywood to a movie family. His father, Gene, was an assistant director and later a production manager. His uncles were directors William Beaudine and James Flood and his brothers and cousins were editors and production managers. Anderson's introduction to films began when he was literally snatched from his crib by relatives to appear in a...

NEW YORK -- Jim McKay, the veteran and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86. McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. "There are not many men who achieved what Jim McKay achieved both professionally and personally," said Sean McManus, McKay's son and the president of CBS News and Sports. "He had a flawless reputation...

PHILADELPHIA - Cartoonist Ted Key, whose comic strip "Hazel" about a bossy maid went from magazine page to TV screen, has died. He was 95. He died Saturday at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a 1 1/2-year battle with cancer, his son Peter Key said Monday. "Hazel" was a popular feature in The Saturday Evening Post from the time it debuted in 1943. It evolved into a prime-time series in 1961 that starred Shirley Booth and ran for four years on NBC and one year on CBS. Key also created the characters Mr. Peabody and...

TOKYO - Kaku Yamanaka, Japan's oldest person, has died of old age in central Japan, officials said Saturday. She was 113. Yamanaka died at a hospital where she was taken early Saturday after falling ill at a nursing home in Yatomi City in Aichi prefecture (state), an official at her nursing home said on condition of anonymity, citing policy. Born on Dec. 11, 1894, Yamanaka became Japan's oldest person when Tsuneyo Toyonaga, 113, died in February. It was not immediately clear who had become Japan's new oldest person, and Health Ministry officials were not available for comment Saturday. Yamanaka was...

HARTFORD, Conn. - Richard Widmark, who made a sensational film debut as the giggling killer in "Kiss of Death" and became a Hollywood leading man in "Broken Lance," "Two Rode Together" and 40 other films, has died after a long illness. He was 93. Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, says the actor died at his home in Roxbury on Monday. She would not provide details of his illness and said funeral arrangements are private. "It was a big shock, but he was 93," Blanchard said. After a career in radio drama and theater, Widmark moved to films as Tommy Udo, who...

The family of Ameriquest Mortgage founder Roland Arnall says he has died at UCLA Medical Center. He was 68. The billionaire helped create and later emerged as a symbol of the struggling sub-prime mortgage industry. A family statement said Arnall died Monday morning but did not give the cause of death. Arnall was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands in March 2006 after an approval process that was slowed by unsettled issues regarding Ameriquest. the California-based lending company he founded in 1979. A major Republican financier, Arnall's fortune was estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes magazine last year.

NEW YORK - William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82. His assistant Linda Bridges said Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said. Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of "Firing Line," harpsichordist, trans-oceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in...

** EXCERPT ** To her longtime friends, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sounds unusually philosophical on the phone these days. She rarely uses phrases like “when I’m president” anymore. Somber at times, determined at others, she talks to aides and confidants about the importance of focusing on a good day’s work. No drapes are being measured in her mind’s eye, they say. And Mrs. Clinton has begun thanking some of her major supporters for helping her run for the Democratic presidential nomination. “When this is all over, I’m really looking forward to seeing you,” she told one of those supporters by...

Legendary Soviet-era prima ballerina dies Feb 19, 2008 MOSCOW (AFP) - The Russian prima ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova, a leading star of the Bolshoi Theatre for three decades, has died aged 66 after a long illness, the company said on Tuesday. "She died in a Moscow hospital after a long and difficult illness," the Bolshoi press service was quoted as saying by the Ria Novosti news agency. Born in Moscow on July 19 1941, Bessmertnova trained at the Bolshoi ballet school in Moscow, graduating with the highest possible grade, an A+, a first in the institution's history. From the 1960s she...

LOS ANGELES - Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota musician, actor, and activist, passed away at 5 a.m. PST at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after an extended illness. He was 72. Westerman began his career in music in the 1960s. He went on to appear in dozens of movies, television productions, and documentaries, and participated in grass-roots education and organizing across the nation, becoming one of the most recognizable American Indians of the 20th century. He was born on the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, but was orphaned and sent to boarding school at the age...

Jefferson J. DeBlanc, a World War II fighter pilot who was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down five Japanese planes on a single day while running out of fuel, died Nov. 22 in Lafayette, La. He was 86 and lived St. Martinville, La.. The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his daughter, Barbara DeBlanc Romero. On Jan. 31, 1943, Mr. DeBlanc, then a lieutenant in the Marines, took off from Guadalcanal in his Wildcat fighter, leading a six-plane section of Marine Fighting Squadron 112. They were assigned to protect dive bombers and torpedo planes attacking Japanese ships off...

Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," died Monday. He was 91. Wilson died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who is known for her role as a flight attendant on the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers." "He is part of the culture. He was still funny to the very end. That's his legacy," his daughter said. Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly...

Cole Black of Escondido, who by his own count spent 2,428 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes as a POW in Vietnam, died Friday in a plane crash near Delano in the Central Valley. [Snip] Black, a former Navy captain, spent seven years as a POW. He was flying an F-8 Crusader on a mission over North Vietnam in June 1966 when a MiG fighter downed his plane. He was 33 years old, had a wife and two children and was one week away from going home. He ejected from the plane and tried to hide in some tall grass....

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Paul Tibbets, the pilot and commander of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, died Thursday. He was 92.

Vincent DeDomenico, a pasta maker who paid homage to his hometown when he invented the Rice-A-Roni side dish, has died at age 92, his family said. Along with his brothers, DeDomenico, the son of Italian immigrants, created the packaged blend of rice and pasta during the early 1960s. It became known as "the San Francisco treat" through television advertisements that featured a catchy jingle and cable cars. After the brothers sold the Golden Grain Macaroni Co. to Quaker Oats in 1986, DeDomenico bought 21 miles of railroad track in Napa Valley and several vintage passenger cars that he put to...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Actress Lois Maxwell, who was known to millions of fans through her role as Miss Moneypenny in a series of Bond movies, has died in Australia, an official said Sunday. She was 80. "She passed away on 29th September at 11:40 pm," a spokeswoman for Fremantle Hospital in western Australia told AFP. The Canadian-born actress had been living in Australia for several years because her son and his family are based there. She first played the character, with whom the ever-charming 007 constantly flirted, alongside Sean Connery in "Dr No" in 1962. She continued to play the...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jane Wyman, the Oscar-winning actress who was Ronald Reagan's first wife and starred in the popular 1980s television drama "Falcon Crest," died on Monday at age 90, her longtime manager said. Wyman married fellow actor and future U.S. President Reagan in 1940 but divorced him in 1948. She died at her home in Palm Springs, California, having been in failing health for several years, business manager Michael Mesnick said in a statement. Known as "one-take Wyman" for her professional work ethic, Wyman appeared in more than 80 films during a career spanning four decades. Her...

Madeleine L’Engle, award-winning author of many children’s and science-fiction books, including “A Wrinkle in Time,” has died of natural causes in Connecticut, accordintg to her publisher. She was 88. L’Engle wrote in many genres over an incredibly productive lifetime, but “Wrinkle” is the book that made her name. Published in 1963, it won the Newberry Award for children’s literature, and according to the New York Times, had sold more than 6 million copies by 2004. That’s not quite up to “Harry Potter” numbers, but for several generations, “A Wrinkle in Time” was sort of our “Harry Potter.” I first encountered...

RICHMOND, Va. - Oliver W. Hill, a civil rights lawyer who was at the front of the legal effort that desegregated public schools, has died at age 100, a family friend said. Hill died peacefully Sunday at his home during breakfast, said Joseph Morrissey, a friend of the Hill family. In 1954, he was part of a series of lawsuits against racially segregated public schools that became the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which changed America's society and touched off a wrenching period for the nation. In 1940, Hill won his first civil rights case in Virginia, one that...

OKLAHOMA CITY - Jim Shoulders, who built his name as a rodeo cowboy and achieved added fame as a beer pitchman, died Wednesday. He was 79. Shoulders, who lived in Henryetta, had a longtime heart ailment, son Marvin Paul Shoulders said. Jim Shoulders won 16 world championships, the most of any rodeo cowboy, and was a charter member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. Years after riding his final bull, Shoulders starred with former Yankees manager Billy Martin in popular ads for Miller Lite.

Herman Stein, a composer whose music for "It Came From Outer Space," "Creature from the Black Lagoon," and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" helped define the dramatic soundtrack of 1950s science fiction and horror movies, has died. He was 91. Stein died of congestive heart failure at his Los Angeles home on March 15, his record producer, David Schecter, said Friday. As a staff composer at Universal Studios, Stein collaborated with Henry Mancini and others to create music for nearly 200 movies and shorts, though he didn't get credit for all of his work because of the studio's tendency to give...

Actor John Inman, most famous for the comedy "Are You Being Served?", has died in London aged 71, his spokesman said. Inman made his name in the 1970s show as Mr Humphries, whose catchphrase "I'm free!" entered popular culture. Mr Humphries became one of TV's best known characters, and in 1976 Inman was voted funniest man on television by TV Times readers. He was declared BBC TV's personality of the year the same year.

Ralph de Toledano, 90, a prolific author and journalist and a passionate partisan for the cause of conservatism, died Feb. 3 of cancer at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was a longtime resident of the District. Mr. de Toledano was a former editor for Newsweek and National Review. His political views migrated steadily rightward through the decades, a political path trodden by a number of leftist intellectuals from the 1930s and 1940s. Ardent anti-Communism was the impetus, Mr. de Toledano said in books, articles and interviews. Search Paid Death Notices To place a death notice call (202) 334-4122 or email...

All the obits written about Saddam were incomplete. All left out a complete listing of all his surviving sons and daughters, a corrected paragraph follows. He was predeceased by two sons, Uday and Qusay He is survived by survived by 15 sons: * Sooflay, a restauranteur; * Guday, who lives in Australia; * Huray, a sports fanatic; * Sashay, who is gay; * Kuntay and Kintay, twins living in Africa; * Sayhay, a baseball player; * Ojay, a stalker and murderer; * Gulay, a singer and entertainer; * Ebay, an internet entrepreneur; * Biliray, a country music star; * Ecksray,...

The hanging of Saddam Hussein ended the life of one of the most brutal tyrants in recent history and negated the fiction that he himself maintained even as the gallows loomed — that he remained president of Iraq despite being toppled by the United States military and that his power and his palaces would be restored to him in time. The despot, known as Saddam, had oppressed Iraq for more than 30 years, unleashing devastating regional wars and reducing his once promising, oil-rich nation to a claustrophobic police state. For decades, it had seemed that his unflinching hold on Iraq...

<p>Mystery writer Mickey Spillane dies after a long illness, a nursing home spokesman says. He was 87.</p>

LIBERTY (AP) - Bill Daniel, member of a prominent Texas political family and former governor of the U.S. territory of Guam, has died. He was 90. Daniel, known by friends simply as "Gov. Bill," died Tuesday at his home in Liberty, according to a statement issued Wednesday by Baylor University, where his name adorns many buildings. "We have witnessed the passing of a genuine Texas original, who has greatly enriched the landscape of our lives and times," said Brad Toben, dean of Baylor Law School and The Gov. Bill and Vara Faye Daniel Professor of Law. Daniel, a graduate of...

The great singer-songwriter and performer Billy Preston, the real "Fifth Beatle," has died after a long illness as a result of malignant hypertension that resulted in kidney failure and other complications. As a result of a medical insult, he'd been in a deep coma since last November 21, but was still struggling to recover. He died at Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he'd lived for the last couple of years. Billy was called the Fifth Beatle because he played keyboards on "Let It Be," "The White Album" and "Abbey Road." He also played on the Rolling Stones' hit...

Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in "Trading Places" and the angry high school principal in "The Breakfast Club," has died. He was 67. Gleason's wife, Susan, says her husband died Saturday at a Burbank hospital of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos. Gleason appeared in over 60 movies, including "Die Hard," "Johnny Be Good," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." Most recently, he made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld." A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor...

USC Starting Point Guard Ryan Francis Killed in Louisiana Shooting While Riding in Car: Francis was shot and killed early Saturday while riding in a car in Louisiana, where he was visiting his mother. The 19-year-old Francis was killed about 3:30 a.m. in Baton Rouge, said Tim Tessalone, USC's director of sports information. Francis was among four passengers whose vehicle pulled up to a stoplight. The driver of another vehicle got out and opened fire, said Lt. Keith Bates of the Baton Rouge Police Department. The driver of the car Francis was in attempted to drive away but Francis, who...

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — John C. Trever, the American scholar who photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem in 1948, has died, his family reported. He was 90. Trever died Saturday at his home in Lake Forest in Orange County, said his son, Albuquerque Journal political cartoonist John Trever. The younger Trever said it was by chance that his father happened to be in Jerusalem doing unrelated research when Father Boutros Sowmy brought several scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research in February 1948 that were said to have been found in a cave the year before by a...

Emmy-winning producer-director Scott Brazil, whose television shows included "The Shield" and "Hill Street Blues," has died. He was 50. Brazil died Monday at Sherman Oaks Hospital of respiratory failure due to Lou Gehrig's disease and lyme disease complications, FX Networks spokesman John Solberg said Wednesday. Brazil was executive producer of "The Shield," the first original drama series on FX Networks, and he directed 11 episodes. Brazil and "Shield" creator and executive producer Shawn Ryan won the 2002 Golden Globe for drama series. Although his condition had worsened, Brazil used a motorized wheelchair to go about his duties as "The Shield"...

LOS ANGELES - Actor Chris Penn died accidentally from an enlarged heart and the effects of a mix of multiple medications, the county coroner's office said Monday. Penn, 40, the younger brother of Sean Penn, was found dead in his Santa Monica condominium on Jan. 24, but the results of his autopsy and toxicology tests were not released until Monday. The primary cause of death was "nonspecific cardiomyopathy," an oversized heart, with the "effects of multiple medication intake," according to a statement issued by the coroner's office. "We know he had several prescriptions, including promethazine with codeine, which featured predominantly...

NEW YORK -- Peter Benchley, whose novel "Jaws" terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died at age 65, his widow said Sunday. Wendy Benchley, married to the author for 41 years, said he died Saturday night at their home in Princeton, N.J. The cause of death, she said, was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and a fatal scarring of the lungs. Thanks to Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still...

Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died. She was 78. Flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning. "We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country," the King family said in a statement. The family said she died overnight, but did not say where she died. She suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.

Smith impressed many with her skills By Mike Bockoven michael.bockoven@theindependent.com For the people who knew and worked with Virginia Smith, there were three common themes -- they all met her in person, they all admired her work as Third District Representative, and they all found her fantastic. "She was one lady you never forgot," Margaret Landis, a former Hall County Supervisor who worked with Smith on getting water out to the Capital Heights area, said. "We've had some good people follow her, but I guarantee they weren't her. She was a dynamic lady." Smith died Monday at the age of...

Adeline Tancredo, congressman's mother Adeline Tancredo's sauce propelled son into politics.| Print By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News January 25, 2006 Adeline Tancredo, whose spaghetti sauce recipe launched a political career for her son, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, died Tuesday in Westminster after suffering a stroke last year. She was 92. Mrs. Tancredo lived in Denver for most of her life, the daughter of Italian-American immigrants. When she was 16 years old, she went to work for $1 a day as a clerk at Joslins Department store on 16th Street in Denver - a site that is now a Courtyard...

Sandy Fawkes, who died on December 26 aged 75, was found as a baby in the Grand Union Canal and later narrowly escaped death at the hands of a serial killer; she seemed a fixture in the public houses of Soho, but found time to follow careers as a journalist and author. For her last 30 years Sandy Fawkes was a familiar sight in the Coach and Horses and in the French pub in Soho, consuming simply astonishing amounts of whisky. When she was among generous company, the barman would change her glass for a more capacious one as the...

Robert F. Maguire Jr., who was once dubbed the "Irish Moses" by an Israeli prime minister for heading up a dangerous secret airlift that flew 40,000 Jews to the newborn state, has died. He was 94. Maguire died June 10 at his Northridge home, according to his son Robert F. Maguire III. Maguire, a Portland, Ore., native of Irish and British descent who was raised as an Episcopalian, was a World War II veteran working for Alaska Airlines in 1948 when the company agreed to fly refugees from Yemen to the newly established Jewish state. The American Joint Distribution Committee...

I do while perusing the morning Internet is read the military obituaries in the British press, mainly The Daily Telegraph. Invariably, these write-ups mark the passing of a veteran of World War II in the kind of scope and detail, as critic James Bowman has noted, rarely found in an American paper. Sometimes, I feel compelled to save them in a file. Last summer, there was Wing Commander David Penman, 85, one of five Lancaster bombers pilots (out of 12 who started on the mission) to return in 1942 from a daring, low-flying, daylight raid on a German engine plant;...

TIJUANA, Mexico - Retired Army Col. David Hackworth, a controversial columnist who began the Tiger Force unit that later committed a string of atrocities in Vietnam, died this week. He was 74. ~snip~ As a 15-year-old orphan in Southern California, Mr. Hackworth joined the Army at the end of World War II, surviving four battle wounds in Korea. His heroics earned him a Silver Star, a battlefield commission to second lieutenant, and his own commando unit. A decade later, he would use his commando experience to form Tiger Force in November, 1965. In a war where traditional units were sitting...

Mark Scott formerly of WXYT for a long time in Detroit has died at 69. Some folks here may have been influenced by his rationalism and cries of Excelsior! in the past.

NEW YORK - Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Cronkite, the wife of former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, has died, the newsman's assistant said Wednesday. She was 89. She died of complications of cancer Tuesday night at the couple's Manhattan apartment, said the assistant, Julie Sukman. Walter Cronkite met his future wife, born Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, while they were both working at radio station KCMO in Kansas City, Mo. They married in 1940, and shortly afterward she became women's editor of the Kansas City Journal-Post. While her husband was overseas reporting for United Press during much of World War II, she worked...

LOS ANGELES - Teresa Wright, the willowy actress who starred opposite Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando and won a supporting Academy Award in 1942 for "Mrs. Miniver," has died. She was 86. Wright died Sunday of a heart attack at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, her daughter, Mary-Kelly Busch, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Wright's career skyrocketed after her first film, "The Little Foxes," which brought her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress of 1941. The following year she was honored with two nominations: lead actress as the wife of Lou Gehrig in "The Pride of the Yankees"...