Nathaniel Taylor, Rollo Lawson on 'Sanford and Son,' Dies at 80

[Edited 3/11/19 5:41am]

Katherine Helmond, star on 'Who's the Boss?' and 'Soap,' dies at 89

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Katherine Helmond, the seven-time Emmy-nominated Texas actress who played the feisty, man-crazy mother Mona Robinson on the long-running ABC sitcom Who's the Boss?, has died. She was 89.

Helmond, who earlier starred as the wide-eyed socialite sister Jessica Tate on another popular ABC comedy, Susan Harris' daytime-serial spoof Soap, died Saturday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at her home in Los Angeles, her talent agency, APA, announced.

Katherine Helmond during ABC's 50th Anniversary Celebration at The Pantages Theater in Hollywood, California, United States. (Photo by SGranitz/WireImage) The shapely, blue-eyed Helmond also portrayed Doris Sherman, the widowed owner of the fictional NFL team the Orlando Breakers, on ABC's Coach, and she was Lois Whelan, the upper-class mother of Patricia Heaton's character, on CBS' Everybody Loves Raymond.

On the big screen, Helmond appeared in three Terry Gilliam movies — as the seafaring cannibal Mrs. Ogre in Time Bandits (1981), as Jonathan Pryce's rich, cosmetic surgery-addicted mother in Brazil (1985) and as a hotel clerk in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). And she provided the voice of Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T, in the three Cars movies.

More recently, she appeared on True Blood.

© 1978 Ron Galella Katherine Helmond attending 'Gala Honoring Fred Astaire' on February 4, 1978 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage) Helmond received Emmy noms for lead actress in a comedy for playing Jessica in every season of Soap, which aired from 1977-81. She was nominated again for Who's the Boss? in 1988 and 1989 and for Everybody Loves Raymond in 2002. And she won two Golden Globes, one for each show.

The 5-foot-2-inch Helmond also showed off her glorious cheekbones when she earned a Tony nom in 1973 for best featured actress in a play for her work in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown. She often said that the theater was her first love.

After Helmond toiled for years in small, dramatic parts on television, her agent thought it was time that the actress did some comedy.

"I was married to drunks, I got knocked around and battered and beaten and taken advantage of," she said of her first TV roles in a 2008 interview with the Archive of American Television. "That's one of the reasons I got switched to comedic roles. My agent said, 'I just can't bear to see you knocked around on television any more. ... We're going to try for a sitcom.'"

© American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. For (Photo by ABC Photo Archives) ROBERT GUILLAUME;KATHERINE HELMONDtalent: ROBERT GUILLAUME;KATHERINE HELMONDphotographer: ABC Photo Archivescredit: ABCsource: American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.cap writer: LAC/AL When she auditioned for Soap, Helmond said that Harris sat very seriously, never laughing, but by the time the actress had arrived home from their first meeting, she learned that she had gotten the part.

Soap, as described in the opening, was "the story of two sisters — Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell." The wealthy Jessica had a philandering husband (Robert Mandan) and a sarcastic servant named Benson (Robert Guillaume); Mary's (Cathryn Damon) family, meanwhile, was blue-collar.

Helmond said that Jessica "floated through life; it was like music playing all the time. [Harris] said that I had captured that, that I was very loving and wide-eyed about life, more child-like than stupid."

© GAMMA-RAPHO Danny Pintauro, Judith Ligh, Katherine Helmond, Alyssa Milano, Tony Danza. (Photo by GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) On Who's the Boss?, which aired for eight seasons from 1984-92, Helmond's sexually active Mona dated all manner of men. She played the mother of a divorced advertising executive Angela (Judith Light), who employs a retired St. Louis Cardinals second baseman (Tony Danza) as a live-in housekeeper in Fairfield, Connecticut. His daughter (Alyssa Milano) and Angela's son (Danny Pintauro) also live there.

Mona was a widow who moved on from her husband's death by "throwing caution to the wind, doing whatever comes up, thinking my own thoughts, being a little more risque," Helmond said. She heard from viewers who benefited from that characterization, she noted.

"If life dealt you some unfortunate blow, you would still be able to go out into the world, find new friends, find new jobs, find a new way of living if you knew who you were," she said. "I felt like I was giving a free lesson to a lot of people who are in that position ... I got wonderful letters from people."

Helmond noted that ABC filmed a pilot for a Mona spinoff, but it was not picked up.

Milano paid tribute to Helmond on Friday, captioning a series photos of her co-star with the words, "My beautiful, kind, funny, gracious, compassionate, rock. You were an instrumental part of my life. You taught me to hold my head above the marsh! You taught me to do anything for a laugh! What an example you were! Rest In Peace, Katherine."

Light called Helmond "a remarkable human being and an extraordinary artist; generous, gracious, charming and profoundly funny. She taught me so much about life and inspired me indelibly by watching her work. Katherine was a gift to our business and to the world."

An only child, Katherine Marie Helmond was born on Galveston Island in Texas on July 5, 1929. Her father was a fireman and her mother a housewife, and she was the oldest of three daughters.

After attending Ball High School, she pursued acting in Houston and Dallas, then moved to New York with a handful of friends. When they had trouble finding work, they bought a theater in upstate New York and put on plays there. She said she did 10 years of summer stock.

She spent seven years with the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut and the Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence, Rhode Island. After winning the Drama Critics Award for her off-Broadway performance in John Guare's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The House of Blue Leaves, Helmond followed the production to Los Angeles and quickly landed a guest-starring spot on Gunsmoke in 1972.

Helmond had a role in Arthur Hiller's The Hospital (1971), and in Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), her character kicks over a headstone in a graveyard.

Gilliam originally cast Ruth Gordon for Time Bandits, but she broke her leg on a Clint Eastwood movie, so Helmond got the part. For Brazil, the filmmaker phoned her and said, "I have a part for you, but you're not going to look very good in it," she recalled.

Helmond said that she had a rubber mask glued to her face at 5 a.m. each day during production and wore it for 10 hours at a time. She developed blisters that needed medical attention, yet even during that time, she found "great joy in acting."

"I felt I blossomed as a person when I got a chance to act," she said. "Through all the many years now, I've never fallen out of love. It's been like an incredible marriage that really worked. I enjoyed every minute of it."

Survivors include her half-sister, Alice, and her husband of 57 years, David Christian. She met him at The Hampton Playhouse Summer Stock Theater, where he was the set designer and she the leading lady.

"She was the love of my life," Christian said. "We spent 57 beautiful, wonderful, loving years together, which I will treasure forever. I've been with Katherine since I was 19 years old. The night she died, I saw that the moon was exactly half-full, just as I am now ... half of what I've been my entire adult life."

A memorial for family and friends is being planned.

Keith Flint, singer and founder member of British dance band The Prodigy, has died at the age of 49.

The musician – famous for his sneering punk-style vocals, facial piercings and fluorescent spiked hair -- was found dead at his home in Dunmow, Essex on Monday (Mar. 4) police confirmed

PennyPurple said:

Keith Flint, singer and founder member of British dance band The Prodigy, has died at the age of 49.

The musician – famous for his sneering punk-style vocals, facial piercings and fluorescent spiked hair -- was found dead at his home in Dunmow, Essex on Monday (Mar. 4) police confirmed

Firestarter. RIP.

Jed Allan Dies: Soap Star On 'Days Of Our Lives' And 'Santa Barbara' Was 84

Actor Jed Allan, who built a long career in soap operas and other media as a family patriarch, died Saturday. according to his son's post on Facebook. He was 84.

Allan began his career on the CBS soaps Love of Life and The Secret Storm, then joined Days of Our Lives in 1971. He played the role of Don Craig for 14 years, then segued in 1986 to patriarch C.C. Capwell on Santa Barbara.

When that show ended in 1993, he joined Beverly Hills 90210 as Rush Sanders, the father of Ian Ziering's Steve. But the lure of soaps was still strong and in 2004, he temporarily took over the role of General Hospital's Edward Quartermaine.

Aside from soaps, Allan played Forest Ranger Scott Turner on Lassie for three years, the main human companion for the collie. He also appeared as the host of Celebrity Bowling in the 1970s, and hosted a game show pilot, Temptation, in 1981. He was also in numerous TV movies.

Born Jed Allan Brown, he was married to Toby Brown until her death in 2001. The couple had three sons, Mitch, Dean, and Rick.

No memorial plans have been announced.

Airwolf Actor Jan-Michael Vincent Dies at 74 After Cardiac Arrest

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Actor Jan-Michael Vincent has died at age 74 after suffering cardiac arrest, according to a death certificate obtained by TMZ.

Vincent, best known for his role in the 1980's TV series Airwolf, reportedly died on Feb. 10 in a North Carolina hospital following a cardiac arrest. No autopsy was performed and the actor was later cremated.

The late actor had been dealing with health issues in recent years, particularly in 2012, when he said his right leg had been amputated following an infection in his leg due to complications from peripheral artery disease, according to a 2014 interview with the National Inquirer .

"I'm an alcoholic. I'm me. I got my personality. I don't behave like an alcoholic," he told the National Enquirer.

The Airwolf star struggled with addiction throughout his life, beginning in the 1970s, when he was arrested numerous times for cocaine possession, according to the Daily Mail. He also received a felony assault charge in 1986 but was acquitted.

Following his time on Airwolf, in which he starred as Stringfellow Hawke, he was involved in several severe automobile accidents, resulting in three broken vertebrae in his neck, as well as permanent damage to his vocal cords.

In 2000, he was sentenced to 60 days in Orange County Jail for violating his probation by appearing drunk in public three times.

Vincent was married three times: the first to Bonnie Poorman in 1968, which resulted in a daughter, Amber, born in 1972. The couple divorced in 1977, and he remarried in 1986 to Joanne Robinson, until she filed a restraining order in 1998 after she alleged he had been abusing her since the year of their marriage. He married Patricia Christ in 2000.

In addition to Airwolf, Vincent appeared in the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War and films such as The Mechanic and Big Wednesday. His final film role was in the 2003 independent film White Boy.

Morgan Woodward

George Morfogen, 'Oz' Actor and Theater Veteran, Dies at 86

George Morfogen, a veteran stage actor who is best known for portraying the inmate Bob Rebadow on the HBO drama Oz, died Friday at his home in New York, his family announced. He was 86.

Morfogen also showed up in eight films directed by Peter Bogdanovich: What's Up Doc? (1972), Daisy Miller (1974), At Long Last Love (1975), Saint Jack (1979), They All Laughed (1981), Mask (1985), Illegally Yours (1988) and She's Funny That Way (2014).

Morfogen played the murderer Rebadow on 56 episodes over all six seasons (1997–2003) of Oz, created by Tom Fontana. His character, the oldest inmate at the Oswald State Correctional Facility, possessed a sort of mythical quality, especially after a blackout occurred while he was strapped in the electric chair, sparing his life.

A son of Greek immigrants who was born in the Bronx, Morfogen graduated from Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, then began his Broadway career in 1962 as stage manager on The Fun Couple, a short-lived comedy that featured Jane Fonda and Dyan Cannon.

He went on to act in the Broadway productions of Arms and the Man in 1985; the 1994 revival of An Inspector Calls; Fortune's Fool in 2002; and the 2008 revival of A Man for All Seasons.

His prominent work included the title role in Uncle Bob, written by longtime friend Austin Pendleton; Voysey Sr. in The Voysey Inheritance; Freud in Freud's Last Session; and Shotover in Heartbreak House.

An acting instructor at HB Studio in New York, Morfogen spent 17 years as a resident actor with the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires and performed in five productions off-Broadway for the Mint Theater Company.

He also did Shakespeare in the Park and worked at the Kennedy Center in Washington and on stages in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Phoenix, Seattle, Toronto and Portland, Maine.

His final stage appearance came in June 2017 in Horton Foote's Traveling Lady, directed by Pendleton at the Cherry Lane Theater.

Survivors include his husband and life partner of 51 years, Gene, and his nieces Leslie and Amanda. Donations in his memory may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

Louis Tomlinson's 18-year-old sister, Félicité Tomlinson, has died, Billboard has confirmed. She was 18.

Tthe fashion designer and model collapsed from a heart attack in her West London studio apartment around lunchtime on Wednesday.

Carol Channing, Broadway Icon of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), Hello Dolly (1964) and Oscar nominated for her fab performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) my fav song from the film Do It Again

[Edited 3/14/19 21:39pm]

Stanley Donen RIP who directed some of the best classic films like Singin In the Rain (1952), The Pajama Game (1957), Funny Face (1957), Damn Yankees (1958).