'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/

Top Romanian anti-communist dissident dies

BUCHAREST, Romania – Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, once jailed as a Romanian communist-era "enemy of the state," died Friday after years of fighting to reveal details of the country's troubled past, the prime minister said. He was 80.

Dumitrescu died at home two weeks after he was released from hospital where he was being treated for liver disease, national news agency Agerpres reported.

After communism ended in 1989 with the overthrow and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Dumitrescu was elected to Parliament where he fought as a senator for the exclusion of former communists from public life. He helped draft laws that led to the publication of the millions of files of the feared Securitate secret police files.

He was widely praised for his role in helping Romania move on from its difficult past, particularly as ex-communists continued to rule the country until 2004.

"We have lost one of the most powerful voices against communism," said President Traian Basescu.

"The departure of ... the one who remained upright and dignified during thousands of days of prison and interrogation faced with the challenges and methods of interrogating, humiliation and compromise," is a sad day for all Romanians.

"If Romanians have access to their Securitate files today ... this is largely due to Dumitrescu," said Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu Popescu who knew him well.

Dumitrescu was sentenced to 27 years prison in 1949 for being an enemy of the state. From 1949 to 1964, he was incarcerated in communist jails or kept under house arrest.

After he was released he was not allowed to practice his profession as a lawyer, and was forced to work in construction, a typical career path for former dissidents.

He retired from the Senate in 2000, and in May published his memoirs, "Witness and Document," detailing his time in a communist gulag. He was also chairman of the Association of Former Political Prisoners.

During the communist era, hundreds of thousands of Romanians were imprisoned or sent to labor camps for political reasons.

Romania is slowly addressing its communist past. Basescu officially condemned communism in a 2006 report and denounced it as "criminal and illegitimate" and guilty of crimes against humanity. This year two political detainees were awarded substantial compensation for their time in prisons.

There was no immediate word about survivors, or funeral arrangements for Dumitrescu.

Correction: Salpeter obituary

ITHACA, N.Y. – In Nov. 28 obituaries for Cornell University astrophysicist Edwin E. Salpeter, The Associated Press erroneously labeled his 1951 "Salpeter process" describing how helium changes to carbon as the "Salpeter-Bethe equation." That equation, by Salpeter and Cornell colleague Hans Bethe and also developed in 1951, instead describes bound states of a pair of interacting particles in quantum field theory.

Also, relying on information provided by Cornell, the stories erroneously described how data from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed Salpeter's proposal on detecting high-temperature gases falling toward a black hole. The telescope relied on optical observations, rather than X-rays, to detect the gases.

Former Mexican interior secretary dead at 59

MEXICO CITY – Former Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal, an impassioned proponent of putting Christianity back into Mexican politics, died Tuesday of stomach cancer, his conservative National Action Party said. He was 59.

Abascal was a controversial figure in a country with strong anti-clerical traditions.

"A Christian has to transform the world, precisely because he knows how to do it," a visibly frail Abascal said in a speech at a ceremony honoring him just a week before his death. He called on the audience to "carry out the work of the Evangelists in politics, in the economy, in society, always with happiness."

That kind of openly religious language from a high-ranking official had seldom been heard in Mexico since the 1860s, when reform President Benito Juarez passed laws aimed at breaking the economic and social domination of the church in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation.

Following the 1910-17 revolution, the government passed ever-stricter anti-clerical laws, leading to an armed uprising by militant Catholics in the late 1920s, an event that further widened the breach between politics and religion.

Abascal served as labor secretary under former President Vicente Fox from 2000-05, when he took over the interior department, Mexico's top national security post, for about a year.

As labor secretary, he was known for his largely unsuccessful attempt to reform Mexico's antiquated labor laws. His appointment was controversial because he had previously served as a leader of the Mexican Employers' Confederation, reflecting the conservative and pro-business tenor of Fox's administration.

Fox and his wife Marta Sahagun issued a joint statement saying "we have lost a great Mexican, a great man who dedicated his life to the service of others and the promotion of authentic spiritual and moral values."

In his own statement, President Felipe Calderon called Abascal an "exemplary Mexican" who was "committed to the country's democracy."

Abascal was fiercely criticized for his efforts to get Carlos Fuentes' novel "Aura" dropped from a suggested reading list at his daughter's private junior high school, on the grounds it was too racy. The 2001 incident resulted in a reprimand for the teacher who assigned the list.

The novel contains a brief, stylized account of a romantic encounter beneath a crucifix of the kind commonly hung above beds in Mexico.

At a book fair in Guadalajara on Monday, Fuentes said the attempt to ban "Aura" was the best thing that could have happened to the novel. He did not mention Abascal.

"Thanks to that censorship, sales of the book multiplied, they jumped to 20,000 copies a week," Fuentes said an event titled, "One thousand young people read Aura."

Abascal is survived by his wife and five children. A memorial service was scheduled for Tuesday.

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Associated Press Writer Laura Santos contributed to this story from Guadalajara, Mexico.

Former La Scala choir master Bertola dies at 87

MILAN, Italy – Giulio Bertola, who directed the choir at Italy's famed La Scala theater in 1983-91, has died after a long illness, the opera house said Tuesday. He was 87.

La Scala said Bertola died Sunday, but did not elaborate on the cause of death.

"A complete musician, director and composer, Giulio Bertola was one of the keepers of the great tradition of Italian choral singing, leaving his mark of extraordinary rigor on La Scala," the theater said in a statement.

Bertola directed the choir for eight La Scala opera premiers, including Verdi's "Guglielmo Tell" and Rossini's "I Vespri Siciliani" under artistic director Riccardo Muti.

Before joining La Scala, Bertola had directed the choir for Muti's May 1983 concert for Pope John Paul II.

Bertola also worked in theaters including the Fenice, in Venice, and the Academy of Santa Cecilia, in Rome, according to La Repubblica newspaper and other local media reports.

No information was immediately available on survivors and funeral arrangements.

Stage actress Patricia Marand dies at 74

NEW YORK – Actress Patricia Marand, who played Lois Lane in the Broadway musical "It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman,"' has died. She was 74.

Family spokeswoman Maryellen Lee says Marand died of brain cancer Thursday at her Manhattan home.

Marand was nominated for a Tony Award for the 1966 musical. She also appeared on Broadway in "Wish You Were Here," the hit 1952 musical set it a Catskill resort. The show was best known for its on-stage swimming pool and its popular title song.

Marand was a regular in summer stock, on television's "Merv Griffin Show" and often performed with symphony orchestras as well as at New York night spots.

Survivors include her husband, Irving Salem.

India's "messiah of the poor", former PM V.P. Singh, dies

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Former Indian Prime Minister V.P. Singh, remembered for his controversial policy of reserving a larger share of jobs for the country's disadvantaged castes, died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

Singh, 77, who was suffering from blood cancer and chronic renal failure, died on Thursday afternoon in New Delhi's Apollo hospital, a hospital spokesman said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, no relation to the deceased, said India had lost a great patriot whose empathy for the country's poorer classes would always be remembered.

Singh served as finance and defence minister in late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet but parted ways with Gandhi, and led a coalition that defeated him at the 1989 elections.

He is best known for his policy of reserving government jobs for India's disadvantaged castes, which sparked off widespread protests from the country's upper classes.

Singh's move, aimed at empowering India's oppressed poorer castes, fragmented the country's politics and led to the emergence of strong caste-based parties.

Former WVa Gov. Cecil Underwood dies

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Cecil Underwood, a high school teacher who went on to hold the distinction of being West Virginia's youngest and oldest governor, died Monday at a Charleston hospital. He was 86.

Gov. Joe Manchin's office confirmed the death.

Underwood was admitted to Charleston Area Medical Center Sunday and died Monday, hospital spokesman Dale Witte said. Details about the cause of death were not immediately available.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete, Witte said.

Underwood became West Virginia's youngest governor when he won his first term in 1956 at the age of 34. He won his second term 40 years later on his 74th birthday.

"This is a very sad day for all of West Virginia," Manchin said in a statement released by his office. "We have lost a governor who, through his two separate terms, served our state and its citizens with honor and dignity and, most importantly, with class."

Underwood entered politics at the age of 22, when he successfully ran as a Republican for the state House of Delegates representing Tyler County. After serving six terms in the House, he won his first four-year term as the state's chief executive.

He fought the Democratic-controlled Legislature for four years, but was unable to run for re-election because West Virginia's Constitution then limited a governor to one four-year term.

Underwood was drafted to run for governor in 1996, and defeated Democrat Charlotte Pritt, carrying 38 of the state's 55 counties.

He called his triumphant return to the governor's office "the most gratifying political experience I ever had."

"I feel very saddened for his family," Pritt said. "He, as an educator, had a long, distinguished service for the state of West Virginia in many capacities."

In 2000, Underwood attempted to serve a consecutive four-year term as governor, but lost to Democrat Bob Wise.

Wise, who is now president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, said Underwood devoted his life to West Virginia.

"He left a legacy that in so many ways has improved life for generations of West Virginians," Wise said in a statement. "He constantly demonstrated how to govern effectively in a bipartisan manner. He was a gentleman in the finest sense of the word."

The success of the 1996 election came after several failed attempts to win elected office after his first term as governor.

In 1960, Underwood unsuccessfully tried to unseat popular U.S. Sen. Jennings Randolph. He lost a 1964 attempt to regain the governor's office.

Four years later, he lost the GOP's nomination for governor to U.S. Rep. Arch Moore. After losing to Moore in a close primary race, Underwood went into political exile for eight years.

Moore said the state lost a "fine West Virginian" with Underwood's death.

"He served our state in a very excellent way," he said.

Underwood's return to statewide politics in 1976 was not successful. He lost to Democrat Jay Rockefeller by 250,000 votes, the worst defeat in Underwood's political career.

"He'll be remembered as someone who dedicated his entire life and career to the causes of people around him," Rockefeller said in a statement. "I always enjoyed working with him on opportunities to move our state forward."

Underwood held a number of jobs between his terms as governor, including serving as president of Bethany College. He also held positions at Huntington-based Island Creek Coal Co., Monsanto Corp. and the New York Life Insurance Co.

Born in 1922 in Josephs Mills, Underwood spent all of his early years in Tyler County, graduating from Tyler County High School in 1939 and Salem College in 1943. He earned a master's degree from West Virginia University in 1952.

A high school teacher from 1943 to 1946, Underwood joined the staff of Marietta (Ohio) College in 1946. He went to Salem in 1950 as vice president, a post he held until being elected governor.

He and his wife Hovah, a native of Grantsville, were the parents of a one son, Craig, and two daughters, Cecilia and Sharon. He also had five grandchildren. Hovah died in 2004 after suffering a stroke.