obits

Sam Simon, a creative force behind The Simpsons who left the show after its fourth season in a lucrative arrangement that allowed him to spend much of the rest of his life giving his money away, has died. He was 59. His death was announced today by the Sam Simon Foundation, the organization through which he donated his money. The announcement did not say where or when he died or specify the cause, although Simon learned he had cancer in late 2012.

Although Nimoy followed his 1966-69 Star Trek run with a notable career as both an actor and director, in the public’s mind he would always be Mr. Spock. His half-human, half-Vulcan character was the calm counterpoint to William Shatner’s often-emotional Captain Kirk on one of television and film’s most revered cult series.

Broadcast pioneer Carl E Lee, who worked for 60 years in the radio and television broadcasting industry and was president and CEO of Fetzer Broadcasting Co., died Feb. 22. He was 96.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ben Woolf, an actor on “American Horror Story,” has died after being injured in a street accident, a spokesman said. He was 34. Woolf died Monday […]

Writer and co-executive producer of NBC’s Parks and Recreation Harris Wittels was found dead Thursday at his Los Angeles home of a possible drug overdose. He was 30.

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — Physicist Ernest Sternglass, whose research helped make it possible for the world to see the first moon walk, has died at age 91 of heart failure. […]

The longtime 60 Minutes Correspondent died Wednesday night in a car crash in New York. “It is such a tragedy made worse because we lost him in a car accident, a man who has escaped more difficult situations than almost any journalist in modern times. Bob was a reporter’s reporter,” Jeff Fager, executive producer of 60 Minutes, said in a statement.

LONDON (AP) — The family of longtime actress Geraldine McEwan says she has died following treatment for a stroke. She was 82. McEwan was known for many roles including playing […]

Sanford “Sandy” Socolow, who as Walter Cronkite’s right-hand played a key role in the anchorman’s coverage of the biggest news of the 1960s and ’70s, including the space launches, Vietnam War and Watergate, died Saturday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York from complications from a long illness. He was 86.

Joe Franklin, who became a New York institution by presiding over one of the most compellingly low-rent television programs in history, one that even he acknowledged was an oddly long-running parade of has-beens and yet-to-bes interrupted from time to time by surprisingly famous guests, died on Saturday in a hospice in Manhattan. He was 88.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stan Irwin, a Las Vegas producer and manager for such celebrities as Johnny Carson, has died at age 94. Irwin’s friend and business partner George Michaud […]

The co-founder and longtime president of Action for Children’s Television died today at 86. TVN contributor Arthur Greenwald writes: “Even though we live in an age of hype, it’s impossible to overestimate the influence of Peggy Charren in raising the quality and quantity of children’s media. She pushed a marginal sector of the video biz to center stage at the networks and in Washington. She befriended and praised hundreds of fledgling producers and projects. Peggy was smart, funny, persuasive and generally a force of nature. Plus, she was Estelle Parsons’ roommate back in Connecticut College — a tidbit that should not be lost to history.”

LONDON (AP) — Actress Anne Kirkbride, a star of British soap opera “Coronation Street” for more than 40 years, has died at the age of 60. Network ITV says Kirkbride, […]

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — A 37-year-old model and actor featured on the cover of numerous fitness magazines was struck and killed by a train while filming on the tracks in […]