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US Singer Eddie Fisherâs family has confirmed the demise of the popular singe. The entertainer died following complications of his surgery in the hip at a hospital in Berkeley, California as divulged by the actorâs daughter, Tricia Leigh Fisher through the Associated Press.
A statement was released by the family stating that America lost a true America icon as his extraordinary talent is recognized as one of the greatest voices over the years.
The 82 year old Fisher remains to be one of the most famous and successful singers as he was able to sell millions of albums especially during the 1950s at the peak of his career. He even had his own TV show. Iâm Walking Behind You, I Need You Now and Oh! My Pa-Pa are songs that have snatched the number one spot in the US charts.
Dame Joan Sutherland, one of the greatest operatic sopranos of the 20th Century, has died in Switzerland at 83.
The Australian star, who retired from the stage 20 years ago, had been in poor health following a fall.
Dame Joan made her debut at London's Covent Garden in 1952, going on to appear in productions around the world and making numerous recordings.
Her family said in a statement: "She's had a long life and gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people."
''She's a very important person all over the world, but for us this is our family and we're just trying to come to terms with this,'' said Dame Joan's daughter-in-law Helen.
The singer performed with other greats during her career, including Luciano Pavarotti, who described her as having "the voice of the century".
Actor Graham Crowden has died aged 87.
The Edinburgh-born actor was probably best known for his roles in the television shows Waiting For God and A Very Peculiar Practice.
His agent Sue Grantley said: "He was a wonderful, wonderful man and a brilliant actor and we will miss him terribly."
In a career spanning more than half a century, he appeared in films including the cult 1968 movie If.... and the James Bond adventure For Your Eyes Only.
He turned down the role of Doctor Who after the departure of Jon Pertwee but later appeared in an episode of the long-running science-fiction series as a villain opposite Tom Baker.
He leaves a wife and several children including a daughter, Sarah, who followed him into acting.
Sheffield died Friday of a heart attack at his home in Chula Vista about four hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree, said his wife, Patty.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Canadian comedian and actor Leslie Nielsen has died at age 84.
Family says the actor, best known for his role in the "Naked Gun" film series, died of complications of pneumonia in a Ft. Lauderdale.
Nephew Doug Nielsen, who lives in Richmond, B.C., says his uncle had been hospitalized for about the past 12 days and died in his sleep.
Friends and wife, Barbaree, were by the actor's side.
Nielsen was in more than 100 films, had stars on both Hollywood's and Canada's Walk of Fame.
He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2002.
Irvin Kershner was a graduate of the University of Southern California film schoolIrvin Kershner, director of Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back, has died in Los Angeles aged 87, his agent has confirmed.
Kershner - who also directed James Bond film Never Say Never Again - died at home after a long illness, according to his goddaughter Adriana Santini.
Born in Philadelphia in 1923, Kershner trained as a musician before making documentaries and then features.
His other credits include Robocop 2 and Eyes of Laura Mars with Faye Dunaway.
Known as "Kersh", the director was behind the camera when Sir Sean Connery reprised his 007 role in 1983's Never Say Never Again.
The University of Southern California film school graduate had previously worked with Connery on his 1966 romantic drama A Fine Madness.
Kershner also directed Barbra Streisand in 1972 comedy Up the Sandbox and Richard Harris in 1976 sequel The Return of a Man Called Horse.
Yet he remains best known for The Empire Strikes Back, considered by many to be the best film in the Star Wars series.
"I think it went beyond Star Wars," he once said. "You had some humour [and] you got to know the characters a little better.
"I saw it as the second movement in an opera."
Charlie Louvin has died.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. â When Charlie Louvin paired his voice with his brother Ira's on their first recordings in the late 1940s, they released a sound wave that still ripples through music nearly six decades later.
As half of The Louvin Brothers duo, Charlie Louvin helped perfect a special brand of harmony that enchanted listeners with its purity and honesty. The influence can still be heard at the top of the charts today in pop, country and rock 'n' roll.
Louvin, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry, died early Wednesday at his home in Wartrace, about 50 miles southeast of Nashville. The 83-year-old had suffered pancreatic cancer for about six months.
Last Tango in Paris was banned in several countries because of its sexual contentFrench actress Maria Schneider, best known for playing Marlon Brando's lover in Last Tango in Paris, has died in Paris aged 58 after a long illness.
The actress was 19 when she was cast opposite Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial 1972 film.
It saw her play a young Parisian who embarks on a sexually charged relationship with his middle-aged American businessman.
The film was banned in several countries due to its explicit content.
Born in 1952 in Paris, Schneider was the daughter of French actor Daniel Gelin.
Marlon Brando (r) was Oscar-nominated for his role in the filmShe began her film career in uncredited roles before being given her first break in 1970 film Madly.
Last Tango in Paris provoked such controversy that the actress resolved never to do nude scenes again.
Yet she was briefly seen naked three years later in Jack Nicholson film The Passenger, albeit in long shot.
Schneider battled drug addiction in the 1970s but went on to star in mostly low-budget European films.
She was last seen on the big screen in 2008 French film Cliente, about a married construction worker who leads a double life as a gigolo
British observational documentary maker Richard Leacock, who filmed John F Kennedy on his 1960 presidential campaign, has died at the age of 89.
Leacock, a pioneer of unobtrusive camera technique Cinema Verite, died at his home in Paris on Wednesday.
He solved the puzzle of how to sync speech and video by inventing a system using US-made Bulova watches.
His work on films like the 1960 Kennedy film Primary paved the way for new wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard.
Al Maysles, who also shot the Robert Drew-produced Primary, paid tribute to his colleague's "poetic eye behind the camera" which, he said, "gave him access to anybody because they sensed they could trust him".
"I could see his hands on the camera, cradling it in such a way that he could take good care of the people he was filming," Maysles added.
Interviewed about the making of the film, Leacock once said the film-makers were "enormously excited" to have come close to producing "the feeling of being there".
"On the first day Bob Drew, Al Maysles and I walked into the photo studio where Kennedy was having his portrait taken and just shot what happened - they ignored us," he said.
He also worked on other notable documentaries including 1966 film A Stravinsky Portrait and Monterey Pop, about the legendary 1967 festival which featured performances from acts such as The Mamas and the Papas, Jimi Hendrix and The Who.
Leacock, whose memoir will be published this summer, is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter
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His early work included the cinematography on Robert Flaherty's Loiuisiana Story - a clipFarley Granger has died
Farley Earle Granger[1] (July 1, 1925 â March 27, 2011)[2] was an American actor.
In a career spanning several decades, he perhaps was known best for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.
The actor suffered a heart attack on Thursday at his allotment in Thames Ditton, Surrey, John Bannister said.
The actor was best known for his role as ladies' man Mr Lucas in the 1970s BBC sitcom set in a department store but he also worked in the theatre.
Frank Thornton, who appeared as Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served?, told the BBC he had "many, many happy memories" of his co-star.
"He was a very good friend over a long time," he said.
"We often met with him and his wife - he was recently at my 90th birthday celebrations in January and that was the last time we saw him. We shall miss him sorely."
Born in Durrington, Wiltshire, and the youngest of three children, Bannister did two year's National Service before going to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts.
During his career which spanned five decades, he appeared in TV shows including The Avengers, Dixon of Dock Green, The Saint and Z Cars.
Michael Sarrazin (Jacques Michel AndrÃĐ Sarrazin), actor, born 22 May 1940; died 17 April 2011
The Canadian-born actor Michael Sarrazin, who has died of cancer aged 70, was so visible in Hollywood movies from 1967 to 1977 that one may wonder what happened to his subsequent career. A facetious answer might be that he moved back to Canada and made Canadian movies. Another answer might be that his sensitive, gently rebellious, flower-child persona and his lanky, boyish looks, with his long hair and soulful eyes, were no longer appropriate to the roles he took as he got older.
His most celebrated role was as the ex-farmboy drifter in Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969).
He was born Jacques Michel AndrÃĐ Sarrazin in Quebec City, but was brought up in Montreal, where he went to eight different schools before dropping out.
From the BBC:
Former US child star Jackie Cooper, who went on to work as a TV producer, film director and feature in four Superman movies, has died at the age of 88.
Cooper died in Santa Monica, California, on Tuesday of complications related to old age, his lawyer said.
Aged nine he became the youngest player to be nominated for an Oscar for best actor, for the 1931 film Skippy.
Late in his career he appeared as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the four Christopher Reeve Superman films.
As a child, Cooper became a familiar face to many in Hal Roach's Our Gang series of short comedy films.
He went on to star in Skippy, an adaptation of a popular comic strip.
In one scene where he was required to cry, the director, his uncle Norman Taurog, pretended to have his dog shot off-set in order to bring on the tears - a ploy that worked.
Although the young Cooper did not win the Academy Award for best actor, his uncle did take best director for that film.
Fifty years later, Cooper entitled his 1981 autobiography Please Don't Shoot My Dog.
He followed his success in Skippy with roles in films including The Champ, The Bowery and Treasure Island, and continued acting through his adolescence.
He served in the US Navy during World War II and returned to find his film career had waned. So he took to the stage in New York in a number of Broadway shows.
He went on to star in TV sit-oms and dramas, before turning his hand to directing and production.
His appearances as gruff Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Superman films brought him back to the big screen in the twilight of his career.
Born John Cooper in Los Angeles in 1922, he was married three times and had four children. Two sons survive him.
From the BBC:
Arthur Laurents, writer of such classic stage musicals as West Side Story and Gypsy, has died in New York aged 93.
The director and screenwriter died at his Manhattan home from complications of pneumonia, his agent said.
Born in Brooklyn, the attorney's son began in radio and wrote military training films during World War II.
His screen credits include the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, Barbra Streisand romance The Way We Were and 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point.
Laurents won a Tony award in 1968 as author of the book for the musical Hallelujah, Baby!, and another, in 1984, for directing La Cage aux Folles.
He remains best known for writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy, hit Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.
Featuring music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the former retold the Romeo and Juliet story as a drama about rival New York street gangs.
The latter, based on the memoirs of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, premiered in 1959 and was successfully revived four times on Broadway.
Laurents directed three of the revivals himself, most recently in 2008 with Patty LuPone in the leading role.
His other credits as a stage director include I Can Get It For You Wholesale, best remembered as the musical which introduced a 19-year-old Barbra Streisand to Broadway in 1962.
Earlier this year the Oscar-winning actress confirmed she plans to star in and possibly direct a new film version of Gypsy.
Dolores Fuller has died aged 87. She appeared in a number of films of little note. But her main claim to fame was that she was Ed Wood's muse and appeared in his film "I Led 2 Lives" also known as "Glen or Glenda". This landmark 1953 film was the one where Ed Wood played the part of a transvestite with a fondness for angora sweaters.
The making of this film was emulated in Tim Burton's film "Ed Wood". In that film Sarah Jessica Parker played the part of Dolores Fuller.
Edward Hardwicke has died aged 78. Although he appeared in quite a few Briiish films, he is best remembered for his role in the BBC series Colditz and for his role as Doctor Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett.
He was the son of Cedric Hardwicke, the distinguished British character actor.
I always considered Edward Hardwicke a real stalwart.
Absolutely reliable and consistent, he would never disappoint as an actor.
From the BBC:
US writer and producer Leonard Stern, who was behind hit shows including Get Smart and The Honeymooners, has died aged 87.
The Emmy and Golden Globe award-winner died of heart failure at a Los Angeles hospital, his spokesman said.
Stern found early success in the 1950s writing for sitcoms like The Phil Silvers Show.
He also created and directed 1970s crime drama McMillan and Wife starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James.
Stern penned two Abbott & Costello films before his stint on The Jackie Gleason Show, where he wrote The Honeymooners sketches - which later spawned a TV series.
During his career, he worked as a writer and producer on more than 20 sitcoms.
In the 1960s, he created the sitcoms I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, fugitive satire Run Buddy Run, and He & She, starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss as two young love birds.
The writer's film credits include screenplays for 1952 film The Jazz Singer, 1979's Just You and Me, Kid starring George Burns and Brooke Shields - which he also directed - and 1985 film Target starring Gene Hackman.
Aside from his Hollywood career, Stern also co-created a popular word game, Mad Libs - in which people fill in blank spaces with random nouns, adjectives and adverbs to form funny stories.
He is survived by his wife of 55 years, actress Gloria Stroock - who played Hudson's secretary on McMillan & Wife - and two children.
From the BBC:
Laura Ziskin, producer of Pretty Woman and the Spider-Man films, has died of cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 61.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and co-founded Stand Up to Cancer, a charity that has raised more than $200m (ÂĢ122m) for cancer research.
In addition to making movies, Ziskin - a Los Angeles native - also produced the Academy Awards telecast twice.
The Hollywood veteran had been working on the latest instalment in the Spider-Man series prior to her death.
Ziskin, who started out as a personal assistant for producer Jon Peters, produced a wide range of films during career, which spanned three decades.
These included early Kevin Costner success No Way Out, David Fincher's controversial Fight Club and the Oscar-winning comedy As Good As It Gets.
From 1994 to 1999 Ziskin was president of Fox 2000, the division of the 20th Century Fox studio that produced acclaimed war dramas including Courage Under Fire and The Thin Red Line.
She went on to have a production deal at Sony Pictures, where she worked with director Sam Raimi on his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy.
Broadcaster Katie Couric, who co-founded Stand Up to Cancer with Ziskin in 2008, described her as "one of the most courageous people I've ever known".
She is survived by her screenwriter husband, Alvin Sargent, and a daughter from a previous marriage.
Peter Falk has died at age 83, reports KTLA in Los Angeles and Variety. The beloved Columbo star died at his home in Beverly Hills last night.
The actor had been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, according to his daughter, Catherine Falk.
In 2009, a judge established a conservatorship for the ailing actor after a court battle between Catherine and wife of more than 30 years, Shera Falk.
Falk won four Emmys for his starring role in Columbo.
Peter Falk appeared in many films such as The Cheap Detective and The Princess Bride. He also appeared in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987) which was remade as City of Angels. His right eye was removed at the age of 3 due to cancer.
