Free Republic

MIAMI -- Earl Morrall, an NFL quarterback for 21 years who started nine games during the Miami Dolphins' perfect season in 1972, has died. He was 79.

John C. Houbolt, an engineer whose contributions to the U.S. space program were vital to NASA's successful moon landing in 1969, has died. He was 95. Houbolt died Tuesday at a nursing home in Scarborough, Maine, from complications from Parkinson's disease, his son-in-law Tucker Withington, of Plymouth, Mass., confirmed Saturday. As NASA describes on its website, while under pressure during the U.S.-Soviet space race, Houbolt was the catalyst in securing U.S. commitment to the science and engineering theory that eventually carried the Apollo crew to the moon and back safely.

Craig Hill, who played P.T. Moore, the co-owner of a helicopter chartering company, in the 1950s syndicated TV adventure series Whirlybirds, died Monday, the Spanish newspaper Ara reported. He was 88. Hill, who also appeared as the prison-bound first-time offender at the beginning of the Kirk Douglas cop classic Detective Story (1951), died in Barcelona, family members told the newspaper. He had lived in Spain for decades.

A couple who held hands at breakfast every morning even after 70 years of marriage have died 15 hours apart. Helen Felumlee, of Nashport, died at 92 on April 12. Her husband, 91-year-old Kenneth Felumlee, died the next morning. "We knew when one went, the other was going to go," she said.

Little Joe Cook, whose one big hit, "Peanuts," helped make him a local music legend, has died.

F. Reid Buckley, a novelist, columnist, founder of a school of public speaking and, in family lore, the most literary of Aloise and William F. Buckley Sr.'s 10 children, including former Senator James L. Buckley and the conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., died on Monday in hospice care in Columbia, S.C. He was 83. The cause was cancer, his son William Huntting Buckley said. Mr. Buckley had lived in Camden, S.C., since the early 1970s. He was often mistaken for his brother William, the founder of the conservative magazine National Review. The brothers not only looked alike. They also...

Sad news to report from the Korn family. Shane Gibson, who performed as a live member for Korn from 2007-2010, has passed away at the age of 35 from complications due to a blood clotting disorder... Gibson went on to play with SchwarZenatoR, stOrk and others ...

The Ultimate Warrior put on his signature airbrushed trench coat, shook the white ring ropes, and, for a few fleeting minutes, the wrestler billed as hailing from Parts Unknown was back home in the wrestling ring. "Speak to me, Warriors!" he bellowed on Monday night's "Raw", back on TV after an 18-year absence. He soaked up the applause from a New Orleans crowd chanting his name and pulled out a neon mask that replicated the face paint he wore in the ring for every main event battle with Hulk Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage in the 1990s. Warrior cut...

WWE Wrestler The Ultimate Warrior has died.

President Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango, who was denied asylum in the United States but stayed illegally for years, died Tuesday at age 61. Onyango, whose immigration status was reported by The Associated Press days before Obama’s election in 2008, had been treated in recent months for cancer and respiratory problems, Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong said. She died in a Boston rehabilitation center, said Wong, who represented her in her immigration case. Onyango, a half-sister of Obama’s late father, moved from Kenya to the U.S. in 2000 and was denied asylum by an immigration judge in 2004. She remained in...

We have been notified of the death last night, in Bath, of the glorious bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk. John was 83 and still teaching at Peabody in Baltimore and at Bath Spa University in England. A colleague there writes: 'He was very generous to students and they appreciated his wry sense of humour, to say nothing of his vast and remarkable performing experience.' ... English baritone John Shirley-Quirk enjoyed singing and playing the violin as a child, but his true vocal talent did not become apparent until he was already studying chemistry and physics at the University of Liverpool. After several...

Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With the Wind and was one of the nine survivors cast adrift from a torpedoed ship in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, has died. She was 96.

Peaches Geldof has died today at the age of 25. The mother-of-two, daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, was found by police at her house in Wrotham, Kent, at 1.35pm. Kent Police said the death was 'sudden' and 'unexplained'. In a heartbreaking statement her father Bob said: 'Peaches has died. We are beyond pain. She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us. 'Writing 'was' destroys me afresh. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? 'We loved her and will cherish...

Mickey Rooney, who spent nearly his entire life in the show business, died today. He was 93.

Otis McDonald, the man whose name will be forever synonymous with Second Amendment activism for his victory over Chicago’s handgun ban, died today, according to his nephew, Dr. Frederick Jones, who spoke with this column. He was 80. Mr. McDonald, who was 76 at the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. City of Chicago that its handgun ban violated the Second Amendment, and that the right to keep and bear arms was incorporated to the states via the 14th Amendment, had been suffering from a lengthy illness. Mr. McDonald was the key figure in a lawsuit brought...

A Toronto rapper is dead after being shot numerous times in his car in what police are calling a “brazen attack” in downtown Toronto. Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan says the victim — identified as Shmar Parris, 25, who social media messages of condolence said also went by the name Murda Marz, a rapper who several videos posted on YouTube — was known to police and the overnight shooting is believed to be a targeted attack. Ryan says a light-coloured SUV was seen driving erratically away from the scene but there are no details on any suspects or how many may...

Peter Matthiessen, a roving author and naturalist whose impassioned nonfiction explored the remote endangered wilds of the world and whose prize-winning fiction often placed his mysterious protagonists in the heart of them, died on Saturday at his home in Sagaponack, N.Y. He was 86... Mr. Matthiessen was one of the last survivors of a generation of American writers who came of age after World War II and who all seemed to know one another, socializing in New York and on Long Island’s East End as a kind of movable literary salon peopled by the likes of William Styron, James Jones,...

The kid from Kershaw, S.C., picked a guitar like his fingers were on fire. Hot licks flew from the instrument when Arthur Smith played – a wizard coaxing magic out of the strings. In 1945, he wrote and recorded a sizzling instrumental that eventually hit the charts worldwide. “Guitar Boogie” would go on to influence generations of musicians, including Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Glen Campbell, Roy Clark. A young Paul McCartney played the Kershaw kid’s boogie in a tryout for a Liverpool band that became the Beatles. Smith, who died Thursday at home at age 93, was a Charlotte-based entertainer...

Joe Frazier, who was a key member of the Chad Mitchell Trio during their most popular years, died on Friday at the age of 77. According to sources, his passing was unexpected. While he had some age-related illnesses, he had been getting stronger in recent weeks.

Our Noel Sheppard passed away yesterday (Friday) morning at about 5:00 AM. Say a prayer for the soul of a man we'll all miss professionally, and many, many of us will miss personally as well. Noel was not just a force of nature, he was a very good man. How quickly this all happened. Just two months ago, Noel wrote about suddenly getting cancer at 53 called "Cancer's Ray of Hope." Nine days ago, he wrote us and said he was interested in writing about his "progress" -- and he put "progress" in quotes. We were all wishing for better...