A Broadway and soap opera star, a Brazilian comedian, a tribute to a martial artist, a member of the “Wack Pack,” A honey-voiced singer of the ’40s and ’50s, Scarlett O’Hara’s little sis, a Dixie Hummingbird, and a master Japanese drummer.

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Broadway, soap opera star Larry Haines dies at 89

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Larry Haines, a two-time Daytime Emmy winner for his 35-year role on the soap opera “Search for Tomorrow,” has died. He was 89.

Haines, who also had a successful career on Broadway, died July 17 at a Delray Beach hospital where he had been admitted a week earlier, his attorney and friend, Tom Dachelet, said Wednesday.

The actor played Stu Bergman on “Search for Tomorrow” for almost the show’s entire run from 1951 to 1986, missing only the first two months.

Stu was the neighbor and best friend of Joanne Gardner Barron, later Joanne Tourneur, the character at the center of most of the show’s plot lines over the years. She was played by Mary Stuart for the entire 35 years.

The soap opera, which was first on CBS, later on NBC, was the longest-running daytime drama in television when its last episode aired in December 1986.

Haines credited the longtime appeal of the show to “basically believable characters that people kind of took to.”

In an Associated Press interview at the time, he said he felt that quality was lost in its final years as more outlandish plot developments were written.

“Soap opera is a story,” he said. “It should be a continuing story, rather than disoriented, meaningless adventures.”

Haines won Daytime Emmys for his role in 1976 and 1981, and in 1985 was presented with a special recognition award for his longevity on the series.

He also appeared for shorter periods on “Another World” and “Loving.”

“Doing a daytime show requires a great deal more concentration than people give us credit for,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1967. “Every episode is like opening night because it’s a new script every day.”

He was generally billed as A. Larry Haines in his Broadway appearances. He was twice nominated for Tonys, for “Promises, Promises,” the 1968 musical version of the film “The Apartment,” and “Generation,” a 1965 play starring Henry Fonda.

He also was in the 1962 Broadway comedy “A Thousand Clowns,” as the brother of free-spirited Jason Robards, “Twigs,” a 1971 program of four one-act plays starring Sada Thompson; and the 1978 “Tribute,” which starred Jack Lemmon.

He appeared as a card player in the 1968 film version of “The Odd Couple,” and made guest appearances on the TV series “Maude” and “Kojak,” among others.

He was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Early in his career, he was an actor on radio series, including the popular horror series “Inner Sanctum,” which famously opened with the sound of a creaking door.

Haines is survived by a niece. His first wife, Gertrude Haines, second wife, Jean Pearlman Haines, and daughter Debora all preceded him in death.

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Dercy Goncalves, brash Brazilian actress and comedian, dies at age 101

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — Brazilian actress and comedian Dercy Goncalves, known for her vulgar wit and scandalous behavior, has died. She was 101.

Rio de Janeiro’s Hospital Sao Lucas says Goncalves died Saturday of respiratory problems after being hospitalized the same day with pneumonia.

Goncalves was known for speaking her mind, often peppering her conversation with obscenities. In 1991, she shocked Brazil by parading topless on a Carnival float. She was 84 at the time.

Goncalves kept working late in life and made several TV appearances after turning 100.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday said all Brazilians will miss her “irreverence and strength.”

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Exhibit marks Bruce Lee’s death

HONG KONG (AP) — Bruce Lee fans are marking the 35th anniversary of his death with an exhibit featuring movie posters, magazine covers and books about the action star.

Also among the 800 items on display are letters written by Lee that detail his life in the U.S., where he attended college and taught kung fu before returning to Hong Kong.

Danny Chan, who plays Lee in an upcoming Chinese TV series, attended the opening ceremony of the exhibit July 18, organized by the Hong Kong-based Bruce Lee Club.

Chan said he hopes the exhibit will improve public understanding of Lee.

“A lot of people like Bruce Lee but know very little about him,” he said.

Lee died July 20, 1973, at 32 from swelling of the brain.

He was known for movies in which he portrayed characters who defended the Chinese and the working class from oppressors. His credits include “The Chinese Connection,” “Return of the Dragon” and “Enter the Dragon.”

Talks are also ongoing about turning Lee’s former home in Hong Kong into a museum. The philanthropist who owns the two-story house has offered to donate the property and has lobbied the government to help convert it into a museum.

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Coroner: Kallenbach died of natural causes

LIMA, Pa. (AP) — Comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, a long-running member of Howard Stern’s “Wack Pack,” died of complications from cystic fibrosis, a medical examiner ruled July 18.

He died April 24 at age 39 at a hospital near Philadelphia after falling ill in the county jail. Kallenbach was being held on a charge of attempted child abduction. He had denied any wrongdoing.

An autopsy revealed the cause of death was attributable to cystic fibrosis — a potentially fatal condition in which thick, sticky mucus builds up in the lungs and digestive system.

Kallenbach’s mother had accused the Delaware County Prison of failing to provide her son with adequate medical care.

Kallenbach, whose goofball antics included attempting to blow smoke from his eyes, made dozens of appearances on Stern’s radio show beginning in 1990. While Kallenbach appeared on the show less frequently in recent years, his name was well-known to Stern’s fans.

Stern once likened him to MTV’s Beavis and Butt-head and wrote in his 1993 book “Private Parts” that Kallenbach was the “ultimate airhead.”

More recently, Kallenbach of Boothwyn, Pa., appeared in commercials for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” and Stride chewing gum. He also appeared on the “Tonight” show and had uncredited parts in HBO’s “Sex and the City” and the Tom Cruise film “Jerry Maguire.”

Kallenbach was arrested in Upper Chichester Township, Pa., in mid-March on a charge of attempted child abduction after he was accused of trying to pull a girl into his car.

He posted bail, but was returned to custody for violating the terms of his probation.

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Singer and radio star Jo Stafford dies at 90

By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jo Stafford, the honey-voiced band singer who starred in radio and television and sold more than 25 million records with her ballads and folks songs, has died. She was 90.

Stafford died of congestive heart failure on July 16 at her Century City home, her son, Tim Weston of Topanga, said last Friday. She had been in declining health since October, he said.

Stafford had 26 charted singles and nearly a dozen top 10 hits, her son said. She won a Grammy for her humor.

Stafford’s records of “I’ll Walk Alone,” “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You” and other sentimental songs struck the hearts of servicemen far from home in both World War II and the Korean War. They awarded her the title of “GI Jo.”

In 1939, she was working with a group of male singers called the Pied Pipers. The group was invited to join the Tommy Dorsey band, a big attraction in the swing era. Soon the Pied Pipers were singing in major hotels and ballrooms and on radio.

A year later, 24-year-old Frank Sinatra joined Dorsey after a brief stint with Harry James, and he and the Pied Pipers melded ideally. Their languorous “I’ll Never Smile Again” became the No. 1 hit for 12 weeks and sold 2 million copies. A half-century later, Sinatra remarked about Stafford, “It was a joy to sit on the bandstand and listen to her.”

Dorsey gave Stafford her first solo, “Little Man with a Candy Cigar,” and it became a hit record. One night in 1944 in Portland, Ore., the temperamental Dorsey got into an argument with one of the Pied Pipers and fired the group.

The Pied Pipers signed with the fledgling Capitol Records, but Stafford left the group to join Johnny Mercer, one of the Capitol founders. Mercer guided her new career with such hits as “Candy,” “Serenade of the Bells” and “That’s for Me.” In demand for personal appearances, she accepted a date at New York’s Club Martinique. A shy person, she never played a nightclub again.

“I’m basically a singer, period,” she said in a 1996 interview,” and I think I’m really lousy up in front of an audience— it’s just not me.”

She was “reluctant star,” her son said. “She loved making records and really didn’t crave the attention of personal appearances.”

At Capitol, Stafford, who had been married to Pied Piper John Huddleston from 1941 to 1943, became reacquainted with Paul Weston, who had been an arranger for Dorsey. They married in 1952, and he acted as her arranger and conductor for the rest of her career. They had two children, Tim and Amy, and four grandchildren.

Despite her shyness, Stafford appeared before studio audiences in radio and television during the 1940s and 1950s. She alternated with Perry Como on a nightly 15-minute radio show in 1944, guest starred on many TV variety shows and had her own series, “The Jo Stafford Show,” in 1955-56.

She recorded more than 800 songs during a versatile career that included ballads, folk, Scottish, country and novelty.

She even tried comedy. She and Weston recorded an album of numbers on which she sang painfully off-key and he played miserable piano. They were billed as Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, but their identity was soon discovered.

A second album won them a Grammy in 1960 for best comedy album.

Jo Elizabeth Stafford was born Nov. 12, 1917, in Coalinga, Calif., where her Tennessee father had come to work in the oil fields. When a new field was discovered in Long Beach, he moved his wife and four daughters south. Young Jo studied classical music for more than three years and was cast in a high school production of “Roberta.” But the 1933 Long Beach earthquake destroyed the school, and she joined her two older sisters singing pop songs on radio as the Stafford Sisters.

The Staffords sang background music at film studios — where Jo met the Pied Pipers.

Stafford made her last recording in 1970 although her songs continue to be used in movie soundtracks, her son said.
She retired voluntarily, he said.

“It really was to raise my sister and I. She walked away from it,” he said. “People would sort of ask her, ’how come you stopped singing?’ She said: ’For the same reason that Lana Turner doesn’t pose in bathing suits anymore.”’

In addition to her son, Stafford is survived by a daughter, Amy Wells of Calabasas, and four grandchildren.

Paul Weston died in 1996.

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Actress Evelyn Keyes dies at 91 in California

By BOB THOMAS
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Evelyn Keyes, who played Scarlett O’Hara’s younger sister Suellen in “Gone With the Wind” and counted director John Huston and bandleader Artie Shaw among her famous husbands, has died. She was 91.

The actress died July 4 of uterine cancer at her home in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, producer and close friend Allan Glaser said July 11.

Glaser said the news was withheld because lawyers wanted to wait until the death certificate was filed.

Keyes’ personal life often overshadowed her acting career. Besides her often turbulent marriages to Shaw and directors Huston and Charles Vidor, she lived with the flamboyant producer Mike Todd for three years during his preparation and filming of “Around the World in 80 Days.” She played a cameo role in the movie and helped on publicity.

Todd sent her to the premiere in Caracas, then called her abruptly from Paris with this message: “Listen, I have to tell you. I’ve fallen in love with Elizabeth (Taylor).”

“Oh well, nothing lasts forever,” she philosophized in 1977. “The good part was that I invested all my money in `Around the World in 80 Days,’ and that set me up for life.”

Keyes gave a frank account of her romances and marriages in her 1977 autobiography, “Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister.” Her role in the 1939 classic led to a contract at Columbia Pictures and stardom.

Among her notable roles: as Robert Montgomery’s lover in “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (1941), the Ruby Keeler role as Al Jolson’s wife in “The Jolson Story” (1946), and as Dick Powell’s wife in “Mrs. Mike” (1949).

She also starred in B pictures that were later praised by movie critics as prime examples of film noir: “Johnny O’Clock” (1947), “The Killer That Stalked New York” (1950), “The Prowler” (1951), “99 River Street” (1953) and “The Big Combo” (1955).

Keyes’ marriages and divorces made her the darling of gossip columns and fan magazines. Her first marriage, to a handsome Englishman and heavy drinker named Barton Bainbridge, ended in headlines when he fatally shot himself during a separation.

Vidor, a handsome Hungarian who directed her first Columbia film, “The Lady in Question,” became romantically involved with Keyes, though both were married at the time. When her husband committed suicide and Vidor’s wife, actress Karen Morley, divorced him, Vidor and Keyes married. The marriage ended two years later when she discovered he was unfaithful to her as well.

Husband No. 3 was Huston. She was impressed when they met at a Hollywood dinner party, and more impressed when he took her afterward to his Tarzana horse ranch and made no effort to seduce her.

Their marriage in 1946 led to an adventurous life. Just one of the examples she recalled in 1971 involved Huston returning home from the 1949 film “We Were Strangers,” with a gift from actress Jennifer Jones, a pet chimpanzee.

“The chimp fell in love with John, and he brought it home to live with us in our all-white apartment.”

David Niven wrote in his memoir “Bring on the Empty Horses” that Keyes became exasperated at the non-housebroken animal and issued an ultimatum: “One of us has to go. It’s the monkey or me.”

According to Niven, Huston replied, “Honey, it’s you.” Keyes reported in her own memoir that it was the chimp that got the boot.

The Huston marriage did end in 1950, however, and Keyes sought analysis to recover from the failure. Her conclusion: “I was always looking for the same man — a strong father figure.”

Keyes’ marriage to Shaw in 1957 seemed to follow the same pattern. He had given up his brilliant career as a clarinetist and bandleader and had been seeking intellectual challenges.

Shaw played Henry Higgins to her Eliza Doolittle, giving her a new name, Keri, introducing her to literature and leading her on his world travels. For a time they lived in Spain. After several years she tired of his dominance and they separated. They divorced in 1985.

After Shaw died in 2004 at age 94, she battled in court for a share of his estate, saying he had promised it to her. A jury backed her in 2006, but the executor of the estate vowed to appeal.

Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1916, according to state birth records; some references give a later year.

She grew up fatherless and poor in Atlanta. A glowing blond beauty with an alluring figure, she danced in nightclubs and at 17 set out for Hollywood. Cecil B. DeMille signed her to a seven-year contract and cast her in “The Buccaneer.”

After a few minor roles at Paramount, she appeared in “Gone With the Wind” and then moved to Columbia, where her career blossomed.

After her film career and marriages ended, she turned author, producing an autobiographical novel, “I Am a Billboard,” two memoirs, “Scarlett O’Hara’s Younger Sister” and “I’ll Think About It Tomorrow,” film scripts and articles.

Keyes took a frank view of her life and career in a 1999 interview:

“To become a big movie star like Joan Crawford you need to wear blinders and pay single-minded attention to your career. Nobody paid attention to me, including me. I was the original Cinderella girl, looking for the happy ending in the fairy story. But my fantasy prince never came.”

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Dixie Hummingbirds lead singer Ira Tucker Sr. dies

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Ira Tucker Sr., longtime lead singer of the gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds, which influenced many other performers and backed up Paul Simon on “Loves Me Like a Rock,” has died. He was 83.

Tucker had severe heart problems and died June 24 in Philadelphia, where the group was based for many years, according to his son, Ira Tucker Jr.

Among those influenced by the band were the Temptations, James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Al Green, according the National Endowment for the Arts, which honored the Hummingbirds in 2000.

They became widely known to Top 40 radio listeners in 1973, when Simon’s “Loves Me Like a Rock” reached No. 2 on the Billboard chart. Besides singing backup with Simon, the Dixie Hummingbirds also produced their own version, which won a Grammy for best soul gospel performance.

In 2007, the group’s “Still Keeping It Real” was nominated for the Grammy for best traditional gospel album.

The Dixie Hummingbirds traces its history to 1928, when founder James B. Davis formed it as a student quartet in Greenville, S.C. Tucker, born in 1925 in Spartanburg, S.C., was still in his teens when he auditioned for Davis in the late 1930s.

He was the band’s lead singer for decades thereafter, bringing a mixture of gospel and blues to the group’s style, and adding an energy and versatility to their performances, according to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, which inducted the group in 2000.

“Tucker, in particular, wowed audiences with his flamboyant theatrics, rejecting the long tradition of ’flat-footed’ singers rooted in place on stage in favor of running up the aisles and rocking prayerfully on his knees,” the hall of fame says on its Web site. “By 1944, he was even regularly jumping off stages.”

After World War II, as the sound of gospel changed, the Hummingbirds added guitar, bass and drums.

“He was an extraordinary performer,” Tucker Jr. said. “I recognized that from the time I was little. Having his name didn’t help me, because I couldn’t sing.”

Davis died last year.

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Daihachi Oguchi, master in traditional Japanese drumming, dies after struck by car

By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) — Master Japanese drummer Daihachi Oguchi, who led the spread of the art of “taiko” drumming to the U.S. and throughout Japan, has died after being hit by a car, an official at his ensemble said. He was 84.

Oguchi was crossing the street when he was struck by the car June 26. He was rushed to the hospital but died of excessive bleeding early the next day, said Yuken Yagasaki of Osuwa Daiko, the group in Nagano prefecture (state) in northern Japan that Oguchi had led.

Oguchi helped found top U.S. taiko groups, including San Francisco Taiko Dojo, which has performed in Hollywood movies and on international tours since its founding 40 years ago.

A former jazz musician, Oguchi was one of the first to elevate the traditional folk sounds of taiko to modern music played in concert halls, not just festivals and shrines.

He led and starred in the performance of drumming and dance at the closing ceremony of the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

“Your heart is a taiko. All people listen to a taiko rhythm dontsuku-dontsuku in their mother’s womb,” Oguchi told The Associated Press at that time. “It’s instinct to be drawn to taiko drumming.”

Charming, fiery and vivacious, Oguchi had been scheduled to perform with Kodo, a well known taiko group, later this year, although he was in failing health in recent years.

Along with Kabuki theater and “ukiyoe” woodblock prints, taiko is one of Japan’s most popular — and respected — art forms in the West. Part dance and part athletics, modern taiko can be dazzlingly visual and acrobatically physical.

Taiko, especially the big ones that tower over the drummers, make dramatic booming sounds. A taiko drum is made from a single hollowed out tree trunk with cowhide strapped tightly across it.

“In taiko, man becomes the sound. In taiko, you can hear the sound through your skin,” is the way Oguchi described it in the AP interview.

Thanks partly to Oguchi and his followers’ efforts, hundreds of taiko groups, both professional and amateur, have sprung up not only throughout Japan but also in the U.S., Brazil, Europe and other nations.

Oguchi also was one of the first composers of modern taiko, writing catchy tunes based on historical themes, such as samurai storming on horses, and helping make taiko a household word in Japan.