Free Republic

he reclusive beekeeper who co-founded Burt's Bees, and whose face and wild beard appeared on labels for the natural cosmetics, died on Sunday. Burt Shavitz was 80. A spokeswoman for Burt's Bees said in an emailed statement Shavtiz died of respiratory complications in Bangor, Maine, surrounded by family and friends. Shavitz was a hippie making a living by selling honey when his life was altered by a chance encounter with a hitchhiking Roxanne Quimby. She was a single mother and a back-to-the-lander who impressed Shavitz with her ingenuity and self-sufficiency.

Sir Nicholas Winton - BBC Programme "That's Life" aired in 1988 (1:29 min) Sir Nicholas George Winton, MBE, who just died last week at the age of 106, was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish Czechoslovakian children on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the "Czech Kindertransport."  An article in Time paying tribute to Winton, a Jew by descent who had been raised as a Christian, was traveling in German-occupied Czechoslovakia and recognize that many children would die. He found homes for the children and arranged for trains to carry them from Nazi-occupied Prague to...

Nicholas Winton, a Briton who said nothing for a half-century about his role in organizing the escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, a righteous deed like those of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, died on Wednesday in Maidenhead, England. He was 106. The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, of which Mr. Winton was a former president, announced his death on its website. He lived in Maidenhead, west of London. It was only after Mr. Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988 — a dusty record of...

Ben Wattenberg died this week at the age of 81. He gave me my first job in Washington, as his research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. (I returned to AEI as a fellow a few years ago, my office just a few doors down from where Ben used to work.) Ben was one of the last star pundits of what might be called the Old Order, before cable news and the Internet transformed the landscape. When everyone was rushing to CNN to shout at each other on "Crossfire," he launched a PBS show called "Think...

Doug Legler had a simplistic nature and always wanted to make people laugh. Even though he spent most of his life working as a driver for Nash Finch, he didn’t want his career choice listed in an obituary. In fact, Legler had a simple request from his family when he died. He said he didn’t want a detailed narrative of his life. When he passed recently, his family felt obligated to follow his wishes. Legler’s obituary was even shorter than his name. It simply read, “Doug Died.” “He said over and over, ‘When I die, I want my obituary to...

'A WAR hero dubbed the ‘British Schindler’ who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis during the Second World War has died aged 106. Nicholas Winton saved the lives of 669 Jewish children from the Holocaust by smuggling them out of Germany on trains on the eve of the war - saving them from almost certain death. His son-in-law Stephen Watson said he died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital in Slough. Sir Nicholas was a 29-year-old stock exchange clerk in 1938 when he began to fear that Jewish residents of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia would be sent to concentration camps....

Sir Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of Jewish children from the Holocaust in 1939, has died aged 106, his family said. Winton earned himself the label "Britain's Schindler" for saving the lives of 669 children by sending them from Prague to London by train. His son-in-law Stephen Watson said Sir Nicholas died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital in Slough. Sir Nicholas rarely spoke of his achievements in the decades after the Second World War, believing his actions to be unremarkable. But he kept a scrapbook with details and photographs of the children he saved.

Nicholas Winton, a humanitarian who almost single-handedly saved more than 650 Jewish children from the Holocaust, earning himself the label "Britain's Schindler," has died. He was 106. Son-in-law Stephen Watson said Winton died on Wednesday. The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, of which Winton was a former president, said his daughter Barbara and two grandchildren were at his side. Winton arranged trains to carry children from Nazi-occupied Prague to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends and saving them from almost certain death — and then kept quiet about his exploits for a half-century.

Jack Carter, whose brash, caustic comedy made him a star in early television and helped him sustain a career of more than a half-century in TV, nightclubs, movies and on stage, died of respiratory failure at his Beverly Hills, California, home, a family spokesman said. Carter turned 93 just four days before he died Sunday, Jeff Sanderson said. In 1948, when network television was beginning, Carter starred in a series of variety shows on ABC. In 1950, Pat Weaver, the visionary NBC programmer who fostered the "Today" and "Tonight" shows and other innovations, scheduled two hours of programming called "Saturday...

Ben Wattenberg — the gloriously unclassifiable public intellectual, journalist, television host, amateur demographer, and loving student of America — passed away yesterday at the age of 81. Among Wattenberg’s many gifts to his country, his unwavering refusal to abide any simple narrative of American decline always struck me as the greatest.

Allen Weinstein, a historian of Cold War espionage whose 1978 book, “Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case,” marshaled a mountain of new evidence to argue that Alger Hiss was guilty as charged in one of the most famous spy trials of the postwar era, and who served as the ninth national archivist of the United States, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Gaithersburg, Md. He was 77. The cause was pneumonia, his son Andrew said. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for several years. Making use of newly available F.B.I. documents totaling tens of thousands of pages, Mr. Weinstein...

Actor Patrick Macnee, star of The Avengers TV series, has died in California at the age of 93. The Briton, best known for playing John Steed in the 1960s television spy show, died at home with his family at his bedside, his son Rupert said. Macnee, who served in the Royal Navy during World War Two, also played roles in theatre, appearing on Broadway. Avengers co-star Dame Diana Rigg paid tribute, saying: "Patrick was a very dear man and I owe him a great deal". A statement on Mcnee's website read: "Wherever he went, he left behind a trove of...

Patrick Macnee, the British-born actor best known as dapper secret agent John Steed in the long-running 1960s TV series "The Avengers," has died. He was 93. Macnee died Thursday of natural causes with his family at his bedside in Rancho Mirage, his son Rupert said in a statement. The clever spy drama, which began in 1961 in Britain, debuted in the United States in 1966.

Patrick Macnee has died at the age of 93. Here Dick Fiddy pays tribute to the TV series that made his name

Patrick Macnee, star of the 1960s TV series “The Avengers,” has died. He was 93. His son Rupert said in a statement that Patrick Macnee died Thursday at his home in Rancho Mirage. The British-born actor was best known as dapper secret agent John Steed in the long-running television series. …

<p>FITCHBURG, Mass. — Donald Featherstone, creator of the pink plastic lawn flamingo, the ultimate symbol of American lawn kitsch, has died.</p> <p>His wife, Nancy, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that her husband died Monday at an elder care facility in Fitchburg after a long battle with Lewy body dementia. He was 79.</p>

Dick Van Patten, who played the paterfamilias on the 1980s TV dramedy “Eight Is Enough,” died on Tuesday morning. He was 86. Patten died at Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. due to complications from diabetes. The always-genial, round-faced actor also appeared in Disney films including “Freaky Friday” (the original, Jodie Foster version) as well as Mel Brooks comedies “High Anxiety,” “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Space Balls.”

No details yet

The two-time Oscar winner, 61, worked on three James Cameron films, two 'Star Trek' movies and classics like 'A Beautiful Mind,' 'Field of Dreams' and 'Apollo 13.' James Horner, the consummate film composer known for his heart-tugging scores for Field of Dreams, Braveheart and Titanic, for which he won two Academy Awards, died Monday in a plane crash near Santa Barbara. He was 61. His death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on Horner's film music page as his assistant.

William Ansor, who was once on the verge of becoming one of the biggest stars in pro wrestling in the mid-80s as "Nature Boy" Buddy Landel, passed away Monday at the age of 53.