Van Bruggen, sculptor and critic, dies at 66

LOS ANGELES – Coosje van Bruggen, a critic, art historian and sculptor who collaborated with her artist-husband Claes Oldenburg on his giant sculptures of mundane objects, has died. She was 66.

Van Bruggen died Saturday in her Los Angeles home after fighting breast cancer, said Andrea Glimcher, a spokeswoman for PaceWildenstein, which represented van Bruggen.

Van Bruggen gained a reputation as an inquisitive critic with her scholarly books and essays on the works of John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter and other contemporary artists.

She was best known through her work with the Swedish-born, American pop artist Oldenburg.

Their collaborations included a 38-foot-tall replica of an upended flashlight on the campus of the University of Las Vegas and a mammoth bicycle that appears to be half-buried at Parc de la Villette in Paris.

"She provided a formidable balance to what Claes brought creatively," said Paul Schimmel, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. "He was playful. He's a draftsman; he begins with a sensual line. She looked at things with a much more conceptual and systematic approach."

Van Bruggen was born in Groningen, the Netherlands, on June 6, 1942. She got her professional start as a curator at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Enschede.

Her first work with Oldenburg came in 1976, when she helped him install his 41-foot "Trowel I" on the grounds of the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, the Netherlands. The pair married a year later.

She was credited with using a matter-of-fact-approach to persuade mayors and other city officials to embrace the sometimes controversial public artworks she and her husband sought to install.

"I'm the daughter of a physician," she said in a 2006 interview, "and I always feel that every piece is a diagnosis."

Besides her husband, van Bruggen is survived by her two children from a previous marriage, two grandchildren, two brothers and a sister.

Obituaries in the news

Alan S. Geisler

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Alan S. Geisler, the man behind the tasty red onion sauce many New Yorkers love on their hot dogs, died Tuesday. He was 78.

The red onion sauce he created is a New York City culinary icon, commonly used by street-side hot dog vendors.

Geisler died at his winter home in Hernando, Fla., after a battle with a protein disorder, according to Chas E. Davis Funeral Home in Inverness, Fla. Geisler created his famous sauce 44 years ago at the request of one of his customers — hot dog and bun manufacturer Gregory Papalexis, whose Englewood-based Marathon Enterprises Inc. now owns the Sabrett brand.

Geisler's sauce, which includes onions, tomato paste and olive oil, remains in distribution today. It's marketed nationwide as "Sabrett's Prepared Onions," according to the funeral home.

The sauce was such a success that Geisler and Papalexis formed a company, Tremont Foods, to produce and market it.

When Papalexis acquired Sabrett Food Products in 1989, Geisler's topping became the only onion sauce served on Sabrett hot dogs. Tremont Foods, whose only product is the onion sauce, is now a division of Marathon Enterprises.

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Ralph D. "Hoot" Gibson

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Ralph D. "Hoot" Gibson, a Korean War ace and former lead pilot for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds flight demonstration team, died Jan. 2. He was 84.

Gibson, an Air Force colonel who founded a Tucson real estate firm after he retired in 1974, died after striking his head while showing a buyer a piece of property, son Scott Gibson said.

Gibson, born in Keensburg, Ill., and raised in nearby Mt. Carmel, joined the Army Air Forces in 1943 and went to flight school, but didn't see combat during World War II. Assigned to the 4th Flying Group during the Korean War, he flew 94 missions in the F-86 Sabre and downed five MiG-15 fighters to become the nation's third jet fighter ace.

In the 1960s, Gibson led the Thunderbirds for two years and flew 104 missions in F-4 Phantoms over Vietnam as a squadron commander, according to an Air Force biography.

Gibson's awards included two Silver Stars, two Legions of Merit, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star for valor, a Meritorious Service Medal, 14 Air Medals and an Air Force Commendation Medal.

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Jon Hager

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jon Hager, who performed in the musical comedy duo The Hager Twins on "Hee-Haw," died Friday. He was 67.

Sam Lovullo, who produced "Hee-Haw" and was a friend of Hager, said Hager was found dead in his apartment. He was discovered in bed and apparently died in his sleep.

Lovullo said Hager had been in poor health and was depressed since his identical twin brother, Jim Hager, died in May 2008.

The twins were in the original cast of the syndicated TV show, which debuted in 1969 satirizing country life with a mixture of music and comedy. Both were guitarists and drummers.

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Joe Hirsch

NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Hirsch, a longtime columnist for the Daily Racing Form known as the dean of American turf writers, died Friday. He was 80.

Hirsch had Parkinson's disease and was recovering from a broken hip suffered in a fall last spring. He died at St. Luke's Hospital, said Steven Crist, chairman and publisher of the Daily Racing Form.

Hirsch, whose career spanned 55 years, reported on the road to the Kentucky Derby in his "Derby Doings" column, a detailed rundown of Derby contenders as the horses competed in prep races in Florida, California, Kentucky and New York.

He received numerous honors for his writing, including the William May Award from the Association of Racing Commissioners International and the Alfred Vanderbilt Award from the New York Turf Writers Association.

Hirsch wrote or co-authored five books on racing, including "Kentucky Derby: The Chance of a Lifetime" with Jim Bolus.

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Cheryl Holdridge

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cheryl Holdridge, a popular Mouseketeer on "The Mickey Mouse Club" TV show in the 1950s, died Tuesday. She was 64.

Holdridge died at her Santa Monica home after a two-year battle with lung cancer, Doreen Tracey, another former Mouseketeer, told the Los Angeles Times.

Born Cheryl Lynn Phelps on June 20, 1944, in New Orleans, Holdridge moved to Los Angeles when she was 2. She became a Mouseketeer in 1956 at the start of the second season of "The Mickey Mouse Club," which featured 24 young singers and dancers.

Tracey said Holdridge received large amounts of fan mail.

Holdridge played Wally Cleaver's girlfriend for two seasons on "Leave It to Beaver" and had guest roles on shows such as "Bewitched" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

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Dave Roberts

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Dave Roberts, a left-handed pitcher who played for the 1979 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates during a 13-year career in the majors, died Friday. He was 64.

Roberts died of lung cancer at his home in Short Gap, according to his wife, Carol, and stepdaughter Kristy Rogan.

Roberts went 103-125 with a 3.78 ERA for eight teams, beginning in 1969 with the San Diego Padres and ending in 1981 with the New York Mets.

The Pirates got him from the San Francisco Giants in a five-player trade in June 1979 that also sent Bill Madlock to Pittsburgh. Roberts went 5-2 for the Pirates and made one relief appearance in the NL championship series that season.

Roberts also played with Houston, Detroit, the Chicago Cubs and Seattle. He finished second in the NL to Tom Seaver with a 2.10 ERA in 1971 for the Padres and set career highs of 17 wins and six shutouts with Houston in 1973.

Obituaries in the news

Roy Boehm

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) — Roy Boehm, who helped start the U.S. Navy's first SEAL team, died Dec. 30. He was 84.

Boehm, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, died at his southwest Florida home, his son Robert Boehm said.

The Navy's elite unit — whose name stands for Sea, Air and Land forces — are deployed for operations such as reconnaissance missions and unconventional warfare. Boehm, who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, helped assemble the first SEAL team during the 1960s. He eventually chronicled his experiences in his book, "First SEAL."

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Don Galloway

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Don Galloway, an actor whose career was launched in the early days of television soap operas and later included the big screen, died Thursday. He was 71.

Galloway died at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, his family said.

His television career began in the 1950s on the soap opera "The Secret Storm." In the early 1960s, he was a regular on ABC's "General Hospital."

Galloway also played Officer Ed Brown on the show "Ironside," starring Raymond Burr, and starred in the 1983 movie "The Big Chill."

He was born July 27, 1937, in Brooksville, Ky.

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Joe Henry

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Joe Henry, the former Negro Leagues player who earned the nickname "Prince" for his skill at entertaining crowds, died Friday. He was 78.

The Officer Funeral Homes in East St. Louis, Ill., confirmed his death.

Henry grew up in Brooklyn, Ill., and played in the Negro Leagues from 1950-59 as an infielder for Memphis, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis and the Detroit Clowns.

According to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Henry later worked for American Motors. He became one of the first African-Americans in United Auto Workers' history to serve as a chief steward.

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Charles Morgan Jr.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Charles Morgan Jr., a civil rights-era lawyer from Alabama who represented Julian Bond and Muhammad Ali and argued for the "one man, one vote" principle that redrew political maps, died Thursday. He was 78.

Family members said Morgan, known as Chuck, died at his home in Destin, Fla., of complications from Alzheimer's disease.

A native of Birmingham who fought that city's segregationist leaders in the early 1960s, Morgan opened the American Civil Liberties Union's Southern Regional office in Atlanta in 1964 and became legislative director of the ACLU's national office in Washington in 1972.

In an Alabama reapportionment case known as Reynolds v. Sims, he won a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that required voting districts to be equal in population, a blow to the political power of rural legislators who until then dominated the statehouse.

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John Neuhaus

NEW YORK (AP) — Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a leading intellectual of the Christian right who helped build a new coalition of conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics and informally advised President George W. Bush, died Thursday. He was 72.

Neuhaus died from the side effects of cancer treatment, said Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, a journal of religion and public policy that Neuhaus founded.

A one-time Lutheran minister, Neuhaus led a predominantly African-American congregation in New York in the 1960s, advocating for civil rights and protesting the Vietnam War. With Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, the Catholic peace activist, Neuhaus led the anti-war group Clergy Concerned About Vietnam.

He later broke with the left, partly over the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. He converted to Catholicism in 1990, and a year later was ordained a priest.

He then worked to break down the historic mistrust between evangelicals and Catholics over their theological differences, helping build the coalition of churchgoers across faith traditions who became key to Republican electoral victories in recent years.

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Gaston Lenotre

PARIS (AP) — Gaston Lenotre, considered one of France's best-ever pastry-makers, died Thursday. He was 88.

Lenotre died at his home in the Sologne region, south of Paris, after a long illness, the company that bears his name said without elaborating.

Success came fast and he quickly diversified, expanding into catering in 1960, organizing receptions from start to finish. Today, the Lenotre company is present around the globe with 35 shops in 12 countries stretching from Japan to Kuwait and Dubai to the U.S.

In 1971, he founded a cooking school. The hotel group Accor bought the Lenotre company in 1985.

Lenotre is credited with taking a new approach to pastry-making, notably making it lighter and less sugary.

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Ned Tanen

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ned Tanen, a former Universal Pictures and Paramount chairman who gave the green light to a string of hits including "Top Gun" and "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial," died Monday. He was 77.

Tanen died at his Santa Monica home, his friend Alisa Covington said.

Tanen's entertainment career began with MCA in 1954. He became a talent agent, packaged television shows and then founded MCA's Uni Records, which helped launch stars such as Neil Diamond, Elton John and Olivia Newton-John.

In the 1970s, he moved to MCA's movie division, Universal Pictures, where he was involved in "American Graffiti," a low-budget movie by then-unknown director George Lucas.

He was president of Universal from 1976 to 1982, a tenure marked by Oscar-winning successes such as "Coal Miner's Daughter," "E.T." and "On Golden Pond."

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Cornelia Wallace

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Cornelia Wallace, a former Alabama first lady who threw herself over her husband when he was shot in a 1972 assassination attempt, died Thursday. She was 69.

Wallace's cousin, Melissa Boyen, said the former first lady had been suffering from cancer.

Cornelia Wallace was the niece of former Gov. James E. "Big Jim" Folsom. She married George Wallace in 1971, shortly before his second term as governor.

She was accompanying her husband on the Democratic campaign trail for president in Laurel, Md., when he was shot four times. A news camera captured photos of her throwing herself over her husband's body to shield him as he lay bleeding in a shopping center parking lot.

The Wallaces ended up divorcing in 1978 amid claims she had bugged his phone in the Governor's Mansion.

In 1997, Turner Network Television made "George Wallace" and cast actress Angelina Jolie to portray Cornelia Wallace. The role earned Jolie a Golden Globe award for best supporting actress in a TV movie or miniseries, but Wallace criticized the script for portraying her as a shallow sex kitten.

Famous French pastry chef dies

PARIS – Gaston Lenotre, considered one of France's best-ever pastry-makers, has died at the age of 88.

The Lenotre company he founded says the pastry maker died Thursday at his home in Sologne, south of Paris, after a long illness.

President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement praising Lenotre as the man who transformed making pastries into an art.

Chef Paul Bocuse has told France Info radio that Lenotre was a "pastry genius ... who always sought perfection."

Lenotre, who is from the Normandy region, opened his first Paris pastry shop in 1957. Three years later he expanded into catering.

Today, the Lenotre company is present around the globe with 35 shops in 12 countries stretching from Japan to Kuwait and Dubai to the United States.

Paul Hofmann, who informed on Nazis, dies at 96

ROME – Paul Hofmann, an Austrian who informed on his Nazi commanders in occupied Rome and later became a New York Times correspondent and author, has died, the newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.

Hofmann died in Rome on Tuesday, the Times quoted his son, Alexander Hofmann-Lord, as saying.

An ardent opponent of Nazism, Hofmann fled his native Vienna for Rome after German troops occupied his homeland. He was eventually drafted into the German Army and posted to Rome, where he worked as the personal interpreter for two successive Nazi commanders, Gen. Rainer Stahel and Gen. Kurt Maelzer, the Times said.

After befriending members of Rome's anti-Fascist Resistance, Hofmann passed information gleaned from his work onto the underground, including intelligence on the deportation of Jews from Rome and the killing of 335 Italians at the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome, the Times said. That March 24, 1944 massacre was in retaliation for an attack by Italian resistance fighters that killed 33 members of a Nazi military police unit.

Hofmann eventually deserted, hiding his family in a convent and later a safe apartment, the Times said. In November 1944, he was tried in absentia by a German military court in occupied northern Italy and sentenced to death for desertion and treason.

After the war, Hofmann became a news assistant in the Times' Rome bureau. He remained with the paper for nearly a half-century, covering Africa, the Middle East, Brazil and the United Nations, as well as Italy and the Vatican.

Since retiring from the paper in 1990, he wrote more than a dozen books, including "That Fine Italian Hand," "The Seasons of Rome: A Journal" and "O Vatican! A Slightly Wicked View of the Holy See."

Hofmann's wife, Maria Anna Tratter, died in 2003, the Times said. He is survived by his sons, Ernesto Hofmann and Alexander Hofmann-Lord; a grandchild; and Alexander's mother, Christine Lord.

'My Three Sons' actress Beverly Garland dies at 82

LOS ANGELES – Beverly Garland, the B-movie actress who starred in 1950s' cult hits like "Swamp Women" and "Not of This Earth" and who went on to play Fred MacMurray's TV wife on "My Three Sons," has died. She was 82.

Garland died Friday at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy illness, her son-in-law Packy Smith told the Los Angeles Times.

Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic "D.O.A.," launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.

She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget exploitation films such as "The Alligator People" and a number of Roger Corman movies including "Gunslinger," "It Conquered the World" and "Naked Paradise."

"I never considered myself very much of a passive kind of actress," she said in a 1985 interview with Fangoria magazine. "I was never very comfortable in love scenes, never comfortable playing a sweet, lovable lady."

Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby's wife in the short-lived sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show" in the mid-'60s.

She went on to be cast in "My Three Sons" as the second wife of MacMurray's widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons of the popular series that aired from 1960 to 1972.

Her television credits also include "Remington Steele," "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "7th Heaven."

Garland was born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1926, and grew up in Glendale. She became Beverly Garland when she married actor Richard Garland. They were divorced in 1953 after less than four years of marriage.

In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, and the couple built a mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. Garland, whose husband died in 1999, remained involved in running the North Hollywood hotel.

She was the honorary mayor of North Hollywood and served on the boards of the California Tourism Corp. and the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau.

Anti-apartheid campaigner Mike Terry dies

LONDON – Mike Terry, who led Britain's anti-apartheid movement for nearly two decades and played a pivotal role in turning British public opinion against South Africa's white minority rule, has died. He was 61.

He died of a heart attack Tuesday, soon after returning from a school where he taught in north London, according to Tony Dykes, who took over from Terry at Action for Southern Africa — a successor to the Anti-Apartheid Movement that Terry led from 1975 to 1994.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement launched protests and demonstrations that helped persuade British universities, churches, unions, businesses and local governments to pull their investments from South Africa, a former British colony. It was part of a global boycott intended to pressure the country's white rulers to dismantle their system of racial segregation.

"Mike Terry will be remembered as a pillar of the struggle against apartheid, a British citizen who was a kindred spirit to the brothers and sisters of South Africa and to humanity as a whole," South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said in a statement.

Africa Action, the successor to the American Committee on Africa, which spearheaded the anti-apartheid movement in the United States, called Terry a "tremendous warrior."

"The anti-apartheid movement in Great Britain was constantly under attack," said Gerald Lemelle, Africa Action's executive director. "For guys like Mike Terry to get up ... and call for justice took an enormous amount of courage and strength."

Dykes said it was Terry's experience teaching in what is now known as Zimbabwe as a young man which prompted him to fight racial discrimination on African continent.

"His interest in commitment was first of all against racism and discrimination and injustice — and a passionate desire to aid South Africa end and overcome apartheid," Dykes said.

Terry first agitated against apartheid as a student activist and would go on to help lead an increasingly powerful protest movement against white minority rule in South Africa.

Terry was instrumental in organizing two concerts in the honor of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in London — one in 1988 to protest his detention at the hands of South African authorities, and another in 1990 to celebrate his release.

Mandela's foundation paid tribute to Terry, saying in a statement that he had shown "unflinching solidarity" with the people of South Africa.

Dykes said Terry was survived by his mother, his partner and a son.

Funeral arrangements were being discussed, but Dykes said he believed the family was planning a private service followed by a public ceremony.

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Associated Press Writer Donna Bryson in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Action for Southern Africa: http://www.actsa.org/