One year ago: Waldo Hunt

Pop-up cards and books became a modern mainstream hit because of the passion for paper art that possessed Waldo Hunt, an entrepreneur and movable-book collector who spent much of his career in Los Angeles. Hunt died one year ago in Porterville, Calif., at age 88.

Hunt ushered in the modern renaissance in pop-up books when he revived the art form in the U.S. in the 1960s with his firms Graphics International, which was eventually bought by Hallmark and Intervisual Books.

For decades, his team of master paper engineers dominated the market for pop-up, boasting large clients such as Random House and Disney.

In addition to his career, Hunt also amassed at least 4,000 antique and contemporary movable-book titles. He gave about 500 antique pop-ups to UCLA before deciding to showcase them in the Waldo Hunt Children's Museum, opened in 1994 within his Santa Monica offices.

"Wally was a truly gregarious guru," said paper engineer David A. Carter, who worked for Hunt for seven years."He was very, very popular in the European markets. He would get up there and be singing songs. His personality is what really drove it. He was a walking party, and he took care of business too."

For more on the pop-up guru, read Waldo Hunt's obituary by The Times.

Photo: Waldo Hunt displays some of his company's pop-up ads in 1986. Credit: Associated Press

Fashion designer Catherine Walker dies at 65

Fashion designer Catherine Walker, whose work was championed by late Princess Diana, has died after suffering from breast cancer, her family said Sunday. She was 65.

Walker is best known for creating some of Diana's most famous outfits. The princess was buried in a black dress created by Walker.

The designer studied philosophy at the universities of Lille and Aix-en Province in her native France, before she moved to London where she married lawyer John Walker.

After her husband died in 1975, Walker was left to raise their two daughters.

"Catherine Walker overcame young widowhood and fought cancer twice with enduring bravery," her family said in a statement Sunday. "She built one of the most successful British couture brands and at the same time raised a loving family."

The family said their mother had "dressed many of the world's most beautiful women," since she first sold garments in 1976, offering her designs from a basket as she walked up and down the Kings Road shopping district in London's Chelsea neighborhood.

Walker eschewed fashion traditions, never showing her clothes in catwalk shows and usually shunning the limelight, but was named couture designer of the year at the 1990 British Fashion Awards.

-- Associated Press

Looking back at Alfred Shaheen

Next week the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles is opening a retrospective of textiles and clothing designed by Alfred Shaheen, a textile manufacturer specializing in aloha prints who died in Torrance in December 2008.

Shaheen, who revolutionized the textile industry in postwar Hawaii, designed a seemingly endless array of shirts, dresses, bathing suits and decorative items, many of which will be displayed in the museum exhibition. The show opens Tuesday and runs until Aug. 8. More information is at the museum website.

Click here to read the news obituary of Alfred Shaheen that appeared in The Times in January 2009. A photo gallery showing selections of his designs is here.

More information about Shaheen's life and work can be found at his website, www.alfredshaheen.com.

-- Claire Noland

Top photo: Alfred Shaheen designed the bright red Hawaiian shirt Elvis Presley wore when he posed for the cover of the "Blue Hawaii" soundtrack in 1961. Credit: Beyond Words Publishing Inc.

Bottom photo: Alfred Shaheen.

Malcolm McLaren, Sex Pistols manager and self-promoter of punk, dies at 64 [Updated]

Malcolm McLaren, who helped introduce the world to the Sex Pistols as the punk band's manager, died Thursday, his manager told the Associated Press. McLaren, 64, had been battling cancer. He and his former girlfriend, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, also brought the punk look to the streets of London and around the globe.

McLaren got people to notice him, one way or the other. As Times pop music editor Randall Roberts notes at the Pop and Hiss blog, "When Johnny Rotten uttered the famous final words of the Pistols' career, 'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?' he was directing his ire at McLaren."

A full obituary will appear later at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Claire Noland

Photo: During a 1978 news conference in Rio de Janeiro, Malcolm McLaren, manager of the British rock group the Sex Pistols, stands behind, from left, band member Steve Jones, actor James Jeter, band member Paul Cook and Great Train Robbery criminal Ronnie Biggs. Credit: Associated Press. [For the record, April 9, 11:35 a.m.: An earlier version of this post gave incorrect identifications for the people in the photo.]

Joan Castle Joseff and her business sense

Joan Castle Joseff, the president of Joseff-Hollywood who died March 24 at 97, took over as head of the company founded by her husband, Eugene, after he died in a plane crash in 1948. The company was well-known in Hollywood at the time for designing, manufacturing and renting most of the costume jewelry used in the movies.  

Among the countless stars who wore the company's jewelry on screen were Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. 

For Joan Castle Joseff, who had joined the company in 1938 as a secretary, some stars stood out. Among them were Bette Davis and Hedy Lamarr, who were prone to ripping off all their clothes and jewelry at the end of long scenes. "It wrecked the strings of pearls," she recalled in a 1992 interview with The Independent of London.

She was equally unimpressed with the many stars who claimed they were allergic to any metal other than gold or who "forgot" to return the jewelry at the end of filming.

"I developed a pretty foolproof response to that in the end," she said in the 1992 interview. "I just used to send them a note saying I was thrilled they liked the pieces, and a bill for $50,000. It worked like a charm every time."

-- Dennis McLellan

Photo: Joan Castle Joseff shows some of her jewelry -- and Toute Petite, a toy French poodle --  in 1961. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Noted Chicago architect Bruce Graham dies

  

Bruce Graham, architect of the Willis Tower, once the world's tallest building, has died. He was 84.

Graham died Saturday at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla., of complications associated with Alzheimer's disease, said his son, George.

Besides the Willis (originally Sears) Tower, Graham played a major role in designing such landmark Chicago structures as the John Hancock Center, Inland Steel Building, Three First National Plaza, One Magnificent Mile and the 1986 expansion of McCormick Place.

Here is the Chicago Tribune's obituary by the paper's architecture critic, Blair Kamin.

-- Keith Thursby

Photos: Above, Willis Tower in 2009, when it was still know as Sears Tower. At right, Bruce Graham in 1982. Credits: Chicago Tribune

They may be dead, but these celebrities are nonetheless making money

It's that time of year, when Forbes magazine releases its annual list of top-earning dead celebrities. You might think Michael Jackson would top the list, since his estate has opened the floodgates with music and a film, "This Is It," to satisfy consumer demand for all things MJ in the wake of his unexpected death in June.

But no, holding on to the No.1 spot is French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. Laurent died of brain cancer at age 71 in June 2008. Boosted by the auction of much of his estate at Christie's in February, more than $350 million has been raked in during the last 12 months, Forbes reported.

Coming in No. 2 is the team of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, the duo responsible for such Broadway and movie musicals as "South Pacific," "The King and I," "The Sound of Music," "Carousel" and "Oklahoma!" Rodgers died in 1979 and Hammerstein in 1960, but they still combined to earn $235 million in the last year.

Then Jackson shows up at No. 3 with $90 million.

The rest of the list, according to Forbes:

4. Elvis Presley, $55 million.

5. J.R.R. Tolkien, $50 million.

6. Charles Schulz, $35 million.

7. John Lennon, $15 million.

8. Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), $15 million.

9. Albert Einstein, $10 million.

10. Michael Crichton, $9 million.

The full Forbes coverage is here.

-- Claire Noland

Photo: Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent at his London boutique in 1969. Credit: Associated Press