Gunter Sachs, German photographer who was married to Brigitte Bardot in '60s, commits suicide [Updated]

 
Gunter Sachs, a German-born photographer known for his playboy lifestyle and brief marriage to Brigitte Bardot, committed suicide in Switzerland. He was 78.

[Updated at 11:03 a.m.: In a statement released Sunday by his family at his request, Sachs said he chose to end his life after concluding that he was suffering from an incurable degenerative disease affecting his memory and ability to communicate.

"I have always stood up to big challenges," the statement said. It provided no details on the timing or circumstances of his death, but German weekly Focus reported that Sachs shot himself Saturday at his home in the exclusive Swiss Alpine resort of Gstaad.]

Sachs was born in 1932 into the wealthy industrialist family behind the Opel auto line. He used his inheritance to fund a glamorous lifestyle that fascinated many in postwar Germany. He also made a name for himself as a photographer and documentary filmmaker.

German tabloids reported extensively on his affairs with film stars and friendships with artists such as Andy Warhol. He was married to Bardot from 1966 to 1969.

Sachs is survived by his third wife, Mirja Larsson, and their sons, Christian and Alexander, and son Rolf from his first marriage.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Brigitte Bardot and Gunter Sachs in Tahiti in 1966. Credit: AFP / Getty Images

Elizabeth Taylor: donations and memorial

Publicists for Elizabeth Taylor, who died Wednesday at 79, said a memorial service will be announced later, after a private family funeral this week.

Her family has requested that instead of flowers contributions can be made to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, c/o Derrick Lee, Reback Lee & Co., Inc., 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1275, Los Angeles, CA 90025, or online at http://www.elizabethtayloraidsfoundation.org.

Personal messages can be posted on a Facebook tribute page.

--Elaine Woo

 

Elizabeth Taylor's obituary: outtakes from a 12-year work in progress

Elizabeth Taylor's death Wednesday moved me in an odd way. Although I never met or spoke to her, I had a "relationship" with her that spanned a dozen years: Hers was the first advance obituary I ever wrote for The Times. The assignment, which I received in 1999, probably was precipitated by one of Taylor's nearly annual brushes with death. I read a mountain of articles and books over a three-month period before writing a lengthy piece. And nearly every year since then I updated the article, adding a worthwhile quote or details about her latest illness. I felt I had come to know her and, unlike many of my subjects, I liked her.

More recently, I revisited the obit to shorten it. Some pithy quotes had to go, such as this one from writer Truman Capote, who once said: "Her legs are too short for the torso, the head too bulky for the figure in toto; but the face with those lilac eyes is a prisoner's dream, a secretary's self-fantasy."

And this one from Paul Newman, her co-star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." He called her "a functioning voluptuary."

Elizabeth Taylor: A life in pictures

One of my favorite anecdotes that didn't make the final cut concerned Howard Hughes, the nutty billionaire who tried to run a movie studio after making a fortune building planes. After Taylor separated from her first husband, Conrad Hilton Jr. of the Hilton hotel chain, she was lying by a pool in Palm Springs when Hughes landed a helicopter next to her. "Come on, get your clothes on, we are getting married," he told the raven-haired beauty. She told him he was mad, whereupon he dipped his hand into a coat pocket and scooped out a handful of diamonds, which he then proceeded to sprinkle on her. Taylor roared with laughter and ran into her friends' house, scattering the diamonds behind her.

The diamonds from Richard Burton, the Welsh actor who accounted for two of her eight marriages, were another matter: She kept most of those. I loved his recollection of his desire for a $1.1-million, 69-carat diamond ring from Cartier in New York, which he acquired for Taylor after outbidding Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. "I wanted that diamond because it is incomparably lovely," Burton said. "And it should be on the loveliest woman in the world. I would have had a fit if it went to Jackie Kennedy or Sophia Loren or Mrs. Huntingdon Misfit of Dallas, Texas." 

I noticed that when Taylor spoke about herself, she rarely took herself too seriously, a quality that made her appealing. "People have called me accident-prone," she told Life magazine in 1997. "That really pissed Richard Burton off. He'd say, no, you're incident-prone."

You can read the obituary here.

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The Taylor-Burton Diamond

Paul Newman on Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor on "What's My Line"

 -- Elaine Woo

Photo: Elizabeth Taylor in 2009.

Credit: Los Angeles Times

Chester Kahapea, symbol of Hawaiian statehood, dies at 65

 

Chester Kahapea, who became inextricably linked to Hawaii's 1959 statehood as a grinning newsboy in an iconic photo, has died. He was 65.

The former newsboy died March 4 at a Honolulu hospital from complications caused by Lou Gehrig's disease, his son Christopher told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

In 1959, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran a picture of Kahapea smiling and holding a newspaper with the headline, "Statehood." The picture went on to be used in numerous publications, including The Times.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Chester Kahapea in 1959. Credit: Associated Press / The Star-Bulletin, Albert Yamauchi

One year ago: Fess Parker, TV's Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone

If you grew up in the United States in the 1950s or '60s and watched television, you probably remember Fess Parker, the 6-foot-6 actor who first played Davy Crockett and then Daniel Boone for chief Imagineer Walt Disney. And you might have demanded your own own coonskin cap. Many kids did.

When Parker died one year ago at age 85, Times staff writer Dennis McLellan reminded readers in the obituary that Disney's Davy Crockett character became a marketer's dream:

[Ten] million coonskin caps reportedly were sold, along with toy 'Old Betsy' rifles, buckskin shirts, T-shirts, coloring books, guitars, bath towels, bedspreads, wallets -- anything with the Crockett name attached.Viewers also fell in love with the show's catchy theme song. Bill Hayes' version of 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' soared to No. 1 on the hit parade and remained there for 13 weeks.

It was a pop-culture phenomenon. As essayist Neal Gabler put it in The Times: "Before Elvis Presley, Beatlemania, 'The Simpsons,' 'SpongeBob SquarePants,' there was Davy Crockett."

After his acting career, Parker became known for his upscale hotels and winery in Santa Barbara County. Although Parker is gone, you can still visit the winery, where you can not only sample wine but also purchase a coonskin cap.

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Photos: Fess Parker, 1924-2010

Saddle up at Fess Parker Winery

-- Claire Noland

Photo: Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. Credit: Associated Press / Walt Disney Co.

David Nelson's death spurs fan response

Throughout his long career, veteran Hollywood publicist Dale Olson has written dozens of obituaries of celebrities that he sent to news outlets. 

But Olson, who informed the media that David Nelson had died of complications from colon cancer Jan. 11 at age 74, says he was stunned by the response he's received to the death of the last surviving member of the family that starred in "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" on television for 14 years. 

"The reaction was incredible," says Olson. "I've gotten calls and e-mails from fans throughout the country and as far as England who were shattered by his death and simply wanted to talk to somebody, even though they were strangers, because they felt the need to express their condolences.

"They grew up with the Nelson family on television, and they felt so close to them."

--Dennis McLellan  

Photo: Fans have left tributes at David Nelson's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Credit: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Looking back at TV legends who left us in 2010

It's late December, when year-end retrospectives pop up all over. We previously cited the TCM Remembers 2010 video clip, and The Times obit department keeps a running list of notable names we covered during the year. Here's something new from the Archive of American Television, which produces excellent long-form video interviews with influential television figures. Now you can browse interviews with prominent TV folk who died in 2010, including Robert Culp, Barbara Billingsley, Tom Bosley, Stephen J. Cannell, Art Linkletter and others.

Tell us who you'll miss the most.

-- Claire Noland

 

One year ago: Connie Hines

Connie Hines was an actress best known for playing Carol Post, whose husband, Wilbur, was the only person who could talk with Mister Ed in the 1960s television show. She died one year ago at age 78.

The "Mister Ed" part was "a tough chore," said actor Alan Young, who played Wilbur. "She was a girl married to a fellow listening to a horse. Her biggest line was 'lunch is ready.' The rest of it was reacting to it. Connie never complained. How many actors would react that way?"

After her first marriage ended in divorce, Hines moved to New York with a girlfriend who was a dancer and wanted to be on Broadway. There, she modeled and appeared in commercials, eventually landing a romantic leading role on the CBS anthology series "Rendezvous" that was shot in Europe.

CBS was impressed with her work and in 1959 sent her to Hollywood, where she appeared on television shows and won a role in the 1960 film "Thunder in Carolina" before making her big break with "Mister Ed."

After "Mister Ed" ended, Hines worked on TV sporadically, including "Medical Center," "The Mod Squad" and "Bonanza."

In 1970, Hines married Lee Savin, an entertainment lawyer and producer. They retired to Dana Point in 1989 on the recommendation of Young, who had been living there.

For more about the actress, read Connie Hines' obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Connie Hines

Credit: Coulter-Straus Inc.

One year ago: Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones was an Academy Award-winning actress who in her life married two legendary men — producer David O. Selznick and industrialist and art collector Norton Simon. She died one year ago at age 90.

Jones starred in more than two dozen films, playing opposite such A-list actors as William Holden, Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck. She won an Oscar for best actress for her performance in the 1943 film "The Song of Bernadette."

Her acting talent may have gone undiscovered if not for Selznick. He groomed her for stardom, pulled strings to get her roles and eventually married her  after she divorced her first husband, actor Robert Walker, with whom she had two sons.

Starting in the mid-1960s, Jones went through a bleak period. Her film career was on the wane and, in 1965, Selznick died. Two years later, she attempted suicide.

Her life took a turn for the better, however, around the time she met art collector Simon at a reception in Los Angeles in 1971 when she was 52. By then, she had retreated from Hollywood and taken up work with mental-health and charity organizations while raising her daughter by Selznick.

Jones, originally not an art connoisseur, became enamored of it when she married Simon. At his death in 1993, Simon named her president of Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum, where she oversaw a $3-million renovation of the museum's interior and gardens that was completed in 1999.

Jones herself was surprised at the many turns her life had taken.

"Actually," she told the Washington Post in 1977, "every time I stop to think about it, I'm really amazed. I think I've had an extraordinary life. And lots of times I can hardly believe it's me."

For more on the actress, read Jennifer Jones' obituary by former Times staff writer Claudia Luther, and view a photo gallery of her life.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Jennifer Jones in 1949, the year she married David O. Selznick. Credit: Associated Press

Turning the channel to TCM Remembers 2010

Here at latimes.com, we have a running picture gallery of notable deaths for the year.

Turner Classic Movies also compiles a lovely tribute package, studded with movie stars and streaming clips drawn from its trove of film treasures. The big names are all here -- Dennis Hopper, Lena Horne, Tony Curtis and Patricia Neal -- as well as a trio from "Airplane!" -- Peter Graves, Barbara Billingsley and Leslie NIelsen. The images fade in and out to the tune of Sophie Hunger's "Headlights."

 

You can watch it on the network's website or on YouTube, where you can also check out the remembrance clips from previous years.

 

 

-- Claire Noland

 

Elaine Kaufman, whose Manhattan restaurant was haven to literary and entertainment figures, dies at 81

 

Restaurateur Elaine Kaufman, whose Manhattan establishment, Elaine's, has long been known as a haven for show business and literary notables, has died in New York City. She was 81.

A statement issued by the restaurant's representative said Kaufman died Friday at a Manhattan hospital. She suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and pulmonary hypertension.

More later at www.latimes.com/obits

-- Associated Press

Photo: Elaine Kaufman at her restaurant in 2004. Credit: Joe Tabacca / For The Times

One year ago: Carl Ballantine

Carl Ballantine was a comedian and actor who is credited with innovating comedy magic performances and greatly influencing a generation of comedians.

Ballantine was well known as an inept comic magician variously billed as "The Amazing Ballantine," "The Great Ballantine" and "Ballantine: The World's Greatest Magician."

As an actor, he was best known for playing crew member Lester Gruber on "McHale's Navy," the popular 1962-66 series that starred Ernest Borgnine.

"Carl Ballantine influenced not only myself but a generation of magicians and comedians," said actor Steve Martin. "His was also the most copied act by a host of amateurs and professionals."

In 2007, Martin presented Ballantine with the Lifetime Achievement Fellowship from the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Ballantine appeared in a number of films, including "The Shakiest Gun in the West" (1968), "The World's Greatest Lover" (1977) and "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992).

He also did occasional cartoon voice-overs and hundreds of voice-overs for commercials, including one for the California Raisins in which he voiced the Raisins' talent agent, a Claymation character that resembled him.

For more on the magic comedian, read Carl Ballantine's obituary by The Times.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Carl Ballantine. Credit: Family handout