Mouseketeer Lonnie Burr recalls Disney animator Bill Justice

Lonnie Burr, an original Mouseketeer on TV's "The Mickey Mouse Club," says he was saddened to hear about the death of former Walt Disney Studios animator and Imagineer Bill Justice, who died of natural causes Thursday in a nursing home in Santa Monica at age 97.

In an e-mail to The Times on Friday, Burr wrote:

"Most people do not know that the warm, funny raconteur Bill knew Walt liked to discover things himself, so when there was need for a 'Pencil Song' on the upcoming Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, Bill had his talented actor/singer/song-writing, tennis buddy, Jimmie Dodd, write the song and had him sing it for some execs and Walt in the latter's office.

"Walt said, 'He's our new Mickey Mouse Club host!'

"Bill smiled knowing that he had helped his buddy and helped Walt find him."

The Times' obituary on Bill Justice is here.

--Dennis McLellan 

Photos: Jimmie Dodd, Lonnie Burr and the rest of the Mouseketeers (top) and Disney animator Bill Justice (below). Credit: Walt Disney Co.

 
 

Comedian Charlie Callas dies in Las Vegas

Charlie Callas, a versatile comedian and sidekick whose zany faces and antics made him a regular for more than four decades on television, in films and on casino stages, died Thursday in a Las Vegas hospice, said his son Mark Callas.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy said the death was from natural causes.

Callas toured with Frank Sinatra and Tom Jones, and had a screen part with Jerry Lewis in "The Big Mouth" in 1967.

His facial expressions and rapid-fire comedy also made Callas a favorite on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

He also worked with Mel Brooks and was the voice of Elliot in Disney's "Pete's Dragon."

The complete Times obituary by Dennis McLellan is here.

-- Associated Press

Jack LaLanne, fitness guru, dies at 96

Jack LaLanne, the seemingly eternal master of health and fitness who first popularized the idea that Americans should work out and eat right to retain youthfulness and vigor, has died. He was 96.

LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, Calif., his agent, Rick Hersh, told the Associated Press

Though for many years dismissed as merely a "muscle man" — a notion fueled to some extent by his amazing feats of strength — LaLanne was the spiritual father of the health movement that blossomed into a national craze of weight rooms, exercise classes and fancy sports clubs.

LaLanne opened what is commonly believed to be the nation's first health club, in Oakland in 1936. In the 1950s, he launched an early-morning televised exercise program keyed to housewives. He designed many now-familiar exercise machines, including leg extension machines and cable-pulley weights. And he proposed the then-radical idea that women, the elderly and even the disabled should work out to retain strength.

Full of exuberance and hyperbolic good cheer, LaLanne saw himself as a combination of cheerleader, rescuer and savior. And if his enthusiasm had a religious fervor to it, well, so be it.

"Well it is. It is a religion with me," he told What Is Enlightenment, a magazine dedicated to awareness, in 1999. "It's a way of life. A religion is a way of life, isn't it?"

"Billy Graham was for the hereafter. I'm for the here and now," he told The Times when he was almost 92, employing his usual rapid-fire patter.

Our complete news obituary can be found here.

--Claudia Luther

Photo: Known for his exuberance and good cheer, LaLanne saw himself as a combination cheerleader, rescuer and savior.

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

Music mogul Don Kirshner dies at 76

Don Kirshner, the veteran music mogul who shepherded the work of monstrously talented young songwriters to the top of the pop charts in the 1960s, launched the career of the Monkees, then made his face familiar to millions of rock fans as impresario of his late-night live-music TV series in the 1970s, died Monday of heart failure in Boca Raton, Fla., where he had lived for several years, his family members said. He was 76.

"Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" brought the biggest names in rock and pop music in the 1970s to television in "Rock Concert" in live performances instead of the usual lip-synced sessions that often characterized rock music on television. Each week Kirshner, in his distinctive Bronx accent, dryly introduced acts, including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sly & the Family Stone, Devo and countless others over its nine-year run. His monotone style led to a famous parody that musician and bandleader Paul Shaffer delivered a number of times on "Saturday Night Live."

He helped dream up the Monkees, a fabricated pop-rock quartet designed to emulate much of the appeal of the Beatles for weekly viewers of the group's TV show, which also yielded a string of hit singles and albums. But the group members' struggles to inject their own musical sensibilities into the show led to a famous battle over creative control with Kirshner.

Guitarist and songwriter Michael Nesmith famously put his fist through the wall of Kirshner's bungalow during one of the more heated sessions.

"Donny was there with his attorney," Monkees drummer and singer Micky Dolenz told the Washington Post in 2004, "basically presenting us with this money and saying, in so many words, 'Why don't you shut up and cash the check?' And that's not the sort of thing you said to Mike Nesmith at the time. To be honest, I couldn't have cared less. I was 20 years old, making money. But Mike led this revolt, and out of camaraderie, we all went along."

The Monkees won, and eventually Kirshner was fired from his role with the group. He went on to form the Archies, one of pop's quintessential bubblegum acts targeting teen and preteen fans. The Archies logged four weeks at No. 1 in 1969 with their effervescent hit "Sugar, Sugar."

Even before the Monkees got started in 1965, Kirshner was already a music business heavyweight, having helped get a career going for his friend Bobby Darin, then starting a music publishing company that hired rising songwriters, including Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and the teams of Gerry Goffin and Carole King and Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.

Those writers crafted dozens of pop hits in the early to mid-'60s, many of them since lauded as classics of the Brill Building era. After "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" ended its run in the early 1980s, supplanted in some respects by the new kid on the block, MTV, Kirshner went into virtual retirement and moved to Florida, where he lived for decades in seclusion with his wife.

A series of bad business deals led him to file for bankruptcy in 2000. He also periodically expressed his disappointment that he was never inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as its many nonperformer honorees.

"I don't want to sound like sour grapes," he said in 2004, "but I believe I should have been one of the first three or first five inducted. Seriously. I mean, they've got people in there that I trained, and I'm not in? It bothers me, on principle."

Kirshner is survived by his wife of 50 years, Sheila, children Ricky and Daryn and five grandchildren. Services are pending.

-- Randy Lewis

More at Pop & Hiss, The Times' music blog, and later at latimes.com/obituaries.

Photo: Don Kirshner, left, with Carole King and Gerry Goffin in an undated photo. Credit: From Don Kirshner

Character actor Paul Picerni dies at 88

Paul Picerni, 88, a prolific character actor who costarred in the television series "The Untouchables" and was featured in the 1953 horror movie "House of Wax," died Wednesday of a heart attack at his home in the Antelope Valley community of Llano, said his daughter, Maria Atkinson-Bates. He was pronounced dead at Palmdale Regional Medical Center.

Picerni portrayed Lee Hobson, a federal agent and sidekick to Eliot Ness, played by series star Robert Stack. "The Untouchables" ran on ABC from 1959 to 1963. Picerni joined the cast in its second season.

He was a familiar presence on television with appearances on such series as "Kojak," "Barnaby Jones," "Mannix" and "Perry Mason" and had roles dating to the mid-1940s.

Picerni was born Dec. 1, 1922, in Corona, N.Y. He was a bombardier during World War II and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Loyola University in Los Angeles in 1950, acting in several campus productions.

"House of Wax," which starred Vincent Price, was the first 3-D feature from a major studio, said writer Tom Weaver, who collaborated with Picerni on the 2007 book "Steps to Stardom: My Story." Picerni played Scott Andrews, a young sculptor who was the boyfriend of Sue Allen, played by Phyllis Kirk.

Picerni’s other films included "The Scalphunters" in 1968 and "Airport" in 1970. Picerni was the halftime master of ceremonies at Los Angeles Rams games at the Coliseum for 30 years.

-- Keith Thursby

Photo: Paul Picerni

 

David Nelson said his family and TV show were separate

 

 David Nelson, who died Tuesday at 74, joined his parents on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" on radio in 1949 when he was 12 and his brother, Ricky, was 8. The family's situation comedy moved to ABC-TV in 1952 and remained on the air until it was cancelled in 1966.

The TV series was produced and directed by Ozzie Nelson, who oversaw every aspect of the show, including the writing.

In a 1971 Esquire article on the Nelsons, David stressed that the Nelson family and the TV show were "totally separate."

"One was real and one wasn't," he said. "For your sanity, you had to keep that clear. Rick and I had to distinguish between our father, and the director telling us what to do. If we got the lines crossed, that's where the arguments started, and I would end up putting my fist through a wall behind the set, because I was that angry."

Noting that a "lot of families are trying to make a transition, in morals and values, from the Fifties to the Seventies," he said that in "our family, there was no generation gap, and I think it's too bad. Because I was a little old man at thirteen. I was polite, tried never to offend anyone, and I felt this great responsibility, because I wasn't just me—I was a quarter of a thing.

"Whatever I did, I felt the burden of three other people and all the crew who worked on the show. I wasn't a truck driver's son who could go out and bust people if he got mad."

--Dennis McLellan

Dick Winters of 'Band of Brothers' fame dies at 92

Richard "Dick" Winters, the Easy Company commander whose World War II exploits were made famous by the book and television miniseries "Band of Brothers," died last week in central Pennsylvania. He was 92.

Winters died after a several-year battle with Parkinson's disease, longtime family friend William Jackson said Monday.

An intensely private and humble man, Winters had asked that news of his death be withheld until after his funeral, Jackson said. Winters lived in Hershey, Pa., but died in suburban Palmyra.

The men Winters led expressed their admiration for their company commander after learning of his death.

William Guarnere, 88, said what he remembers about Winters was "great leadership."

"When he said 'Let's go,' he was right in the front," Guarnere, who was called "Wild Bill" by his comrades, said Sunday night from his South Philadelphia home. "He was never in the back. A leader personified."

Another member of the unit living in Philadelphia, Edward Heffron, 87, said thinking about Winters brought a tear to his eye.

"He was one hell of a guy, one of the greatest soldiers I was ever under," said Heffron, who had the nickname "Babe" in the company. "He was a wonderful officer, a wonderful leader. He had what you needed, guts and brains. He took care of his men, that's very important."

Winters was born Jan. 21, 1918, and studied economics at Franklin & Marshall College before enlisting, according to a biography on the Penn State website.

Winters became the leader of Company E, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division on D-Day, after the death of the company commander during the invasion of Normandy.

During that invasion, Winters led 13 of his men in destroying an enemy battery and obtained a detailed map of German defenses along Utah Beach. In September 1944, he led 20 men in a successful attack on a German force of 200 soldiers. Occupying the Bastogne area of Belgium at the time of the Battle of the Bulge, he and his men held their place until the Third Army broke through enemy lines, and Winters shortly afterward was promoted to major.

After returning home, Winters married his wife, Ethel, in May 1948, and trained infantry and Army Ranger units at Fort Dix during the Korean War. He started a company selling livestock feed to farmers, and he and his family eventually settled in a farmhouse in Hershey, where he retired.

Historian Stephen Ambrose interviewed Winters for the 1992 book "Band of Brothers," upon which the HBO miniseries that started airing in September 2001 was based. Winters himself published a memoir in 2006 called "Beyond Band of Brothers."

-- Associated Press

Photo: Maj. Richard "Dick" Winters in 1945. Credit: Associated Press / Courtesy of retired Sgt. Maj. Herman W. Clemens

 

Steve Landesberg and the question of age

The Times' story on the death of Steve Landesberg said the comic actor "was believed to be 74" while other media outlets said he was 65.

Why the difference?

Details such as birth dates are often provided to obituary writers by family members. With actors and other public figures, the information also has often been printed and posted online. It's our job to confirm the information.

Landesberg's birth date was listed as Nov. 23, 1945, in biographical material and on such websites as imdb.com. Because Landesberg lived in California, The Times was able to check his voter registration information. It showed his birth date as Nov. 23, 1936.

The Times' editorial research library also has access to information from the state's Department of Motor Vehicles. One of our librarians was able to confirm the birth date on Landesberg's driver's license as Nov. 23, 1936.

One thing we could not find was a mention of Landesberg's birth date in any newspaper stories written about him. Adding to our dilemma was a 1979 Washington Post profile in which Landesberg made it clear he didn't want anyone to know his age.

Landesberg's representatives were not able to confirm his age as we wrote the story Monday night, which is why we said he was "believed to be 74" and cited information from public records.

 -- Keith Thursby

Photo: Steve Landesberg in 2007. Credit: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Actor Steve Landesberg, who played Det. Dietrich on ABC's 'Barney Miller,' dies [Updated]

 

 

This is a corrected version of an earlier post. See note below.

Steve Landesberg, a comic actor who played Det. Arthur Dietrich on the long-running ABC sitcom "Barney Miller," has died in Los Angeles.

Landesberg's agent, Jeff Leavitt, confirmed the death.

Landesberg was part of a solid crew of actors playing New York Police Department detectives in the ensemble cast that included Hal Linden as Miller, Abe Vigoda as Fish, Ron Glass as Harris, Max Gail as Wojo and Jack Soo as Yemana. Landesberg appeared on the show from 1976 to 1982.

More recently he had a role in the 2008 film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

A full obituary will follow at www.latimes.com/obits.

For the record, 6:10 p.m. Dec. 20: An earlier version of this post and its headline gave Landesberg's age as 65. In fact, there is some uncertainty about his date of birth. We will report that information in a future post.

 -- Claire Noland

Photo: Steve Landesberg, back row center, played Dietrich on "Barney Miller." Credit: ABC

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.