Celeb deaths
Donna Summer
May 17, 2012: Donna Summer, 63, American disco queen whose songs included Love to Love You Baby and I Feel Love.
Link: Wikipedia
Donald 'Duck' Dunn
May 13, 2012: Donald 'Duck' Dunn, 70, bass player with Booker T and the MGs, who played himself in the cult comedy film The Blues Brothers.
Links: Guardian
Carroll Shelby
May 10, 2012: Carroll Shelby, 89, US racing car driver and designer of the Shelby Cobra.
Link: NPR
Vidal Sassoon
May 9, 2012: Vidal Sassoon, 84, UK-born celebrity hairdresser who became a global brand after humble beginnings in London in the early 1950s.
Links: Wikipedia
Joyce Redman
May 9, 2012: Joyce Redman, 93, Irish stage and screen actress who appeared with Lawrence Olivier in Othello and with Albert Finney in the bawdy Tom Jones.
Link: Guardian
Maurice Sendak
May 7, 2012: Maurice Sendak, 83, US children's book author and illustrator whose most famous work was Where the Wild Things Are.
Links: NY Times
Jill Shearer
May 6, 2012: Jill Shearer, Australian playwright whose works including the acclaimed Shimada, which played on Broadway. Her plays were produced by many Australian companies, including the Queensland Theatre Company, the Melbourne Theatre Company and La Boite.
George Lindsey
May 6, 2012: George Lindsey, 83, US character actor best known for the TV comedies Hee-Haw and The Andy Griffith Show, in which he played the dimwitted Goober Pyle.
Link: LA Times
Digby Wolfe
May 3, 2012: Digby Wolfe, 82, British-born Australian comedy writer and actor who co-created and wrote for Rowan and Martin's Laugh In and hosted the Australian version of This Is Your Life.
Link: Canberra Times
Edith Bliss
May 3, 2012: Edith Bliss, 53, Australian pop star and television host best known for her appearances on Wonder World and her 1970s hits If It's Love You Want and Heart Of Stone.
Link: Telegraph
Junior Seau
May 2, 2012: Tiaina Baul "Junior" Seau, Jr, 43, American football linebaker who played with the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots.
Link: Wikipedia
Jack Gerson
April 29, 2012: Jack Gerson, 83, Scottish author and television screenwriter who wrote for the popular police procedural series Z Cars, as well as The Omega Factor, This Man Craig and Sutherland’s Law.
Link: Scotsman
George Murdock
April 30: George Murdock, 81, US character actor who played in television series including Barney Miller, Bonanza, Ironside, Battlestar Galactica, Night Court, The X-Files and Law & Order, and played God in the film Star Trek: The Final Frontier.
Link: LA Times
Patricia Medina
April 28, 2012: Patricia Medina, 92, British-born Hollywood leading lady of the 1950s. Her films included Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion, Plunder of the Sun, Botany Bay, Phantom of the Rue Morgue and Fortunes of Captain Blood.She married actor Joseph Cotten in 1960.
Link: LA Times
Fumihiko Nakatsu
April 24, 2012: Fumihiko Nakatsu, 70, Japanese novelist.
Link: Indie Bookspot
Charles Higham
April 21, 2012: Charles Higham, 81, British-born, US-based writer and celebrity biographer among whose many works were controversial books claiming Errol Flynn was a Nazi spy and that Cary Grant as a wife-beating closeted homosexual.
Link: LA Times
Levon Helm
April 19, 2012; Levon Helm, 71, US musician and actor who was the drummer with The Band.
Link: Wikipedia
Greg Ham
April 19, 2012: Greg Ham, 58, flautist with Australian pop band Men at Work. He also appeared on the short-lived 1980s TV comedy While You're Down There.
Link: Age.
Dick Clark
April 18, 2012: Dick Clark, 82, US television star, entertainment entrepreneur and pop-culture icon. He hosted Bandstand in the 1950s and hosted the annual New Year's Eve celebrations from New York for decades.
Link: USA Today
