National Geographic

One of the world's wealthiest animals, Trouble Helmsley, has died at her Florida estate at the age of 12.

Leona Helmsley's pampered pooch "Trouble," who inherited $12 million from the real estate mogul, has died at the age of 12. That's 84 in dog years. Like many Americans, the pampered Maltese retired to Florida in 2007, shortly after Helmsley died. Carl Lekic, the general manager of the Helmsley Sandcastle hotel in Sarasota, cared for her. "Trouble was cremated, and her remains are being privately retained," spokeswoman Eileen Sullivan said. "The funds held in trust for her care have reverted to The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust for charitable purposes."

Trouble had reportedly received more than 20 kidnapping and death threats over the years.

The Associated Press reports:

Matt Dillon, the mythical marshal of Dodge City, stood tall — all 6 feet, 6 inches of him — on "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 1975. He outlasted dozens of other Western heroes while making history on TV's longest-running dramatic series, a record that held until NBC's "Law & Order" tied the CBS Western's record in 2010. Through all those gunslinging years, James Arness, who died Friday, kept Marshal Dillon righteous, peace-seeking and, most of all, believable.

I was never a fan of Gunsmoke, but I do fondly recall Arness for playing the monster in The Thing From Another World.

Assisted suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian has died of a pulmonary thrombosis at the age of 84. Kevorkian claims to have helped over 100 terminally ill patients end their lives. He spent eight years in prison for doing so.

No word yet on the cause of death.

The New York Times reports:

Jeff Conaway, the personable actor who won television fame on the sitcom “Taxi” and movie success in the musical “Grease” three decades ago and who later publicly struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 60. He died of complications of pneumonia at Encino Tarzana Medical Center after being taken off life support on Thursday, a talent representative, Phil Brock, said.

Conaway had been in a coma since May 11th.

Stonewall veteran and noted playwright Doric Wilson died this weekend at the age of 72. The cause of death has not been disclosed. Playbill notes his passing:

Doric Wilson was present on June 28, 1969, when riots broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. The rebellion of the bar's gay denizens against harassing police is generally recognized as having signaled the beginning of the gay rights movement. Mr. Wilson had already been an active participant in the anti-war and civil rights fights of the 1960s. Following the riot, he became active in Gay Activist Alliance and, as a "star" bartender, helped open post-Stonewall gay bars like The Spike, TY's and Brothers & Sisters Cabaret. In 1974, Doric Wilson, along with Billy Blackwell, Peter del Valle and John McSpadden, formed TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence), the first professional theatre company to deal openly and honestly with the gay experience. "I was involved with Circle Rep at the time," he later recalled, "when it suddenly occurred to me that I could use the Cino experience to combine my talents with my politics. I could focus my life and abilities to promote a theatre dedicated 'to an honest and open exploration of the GLBT life experience and cultural sensibility.'”

Here's an interview with Wilson from earlier this year.

NOTE: Doric Wilson was an occasional news tipper to JMG. We'll miss his emails.

Openly gay Broadway legend Arthur Laurents has died at the age of 93. Theater Mania reports:

Laurents was best known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim, including writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy (earning Tony nominations for both), Anyone Can Whistle, and Do I Hear a Waltz. Early in his career, Laurents wrote such plays as Home of the Brave and The Time of the Cuckoo. In later years, he wrote and directed the musicals The Madwoman of Central Park West and Nick & Nora. Laurents directed the 1975, 1989, and 2008 revivals of Gypsy, each of which earned Tony Awards for its respective leading ladies, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, and Patti LuPone. He also directed the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story.

Laurents was temporarily blacklisted during the McCarthy era after a review of one of his plays was published in the Communist Party USA newspaper.

NOTE: Laurents asked that his obituaries include this line: "He was predeceased by his partner, Tom Hatcher, with whom he had lived in happiness for more than 50 years."

Another 70's pop icon has passed. Legendary vocalist Phoebe Snow died this morning of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 58 after several months in a coma. The 1975 best new artist Grammy nominee had famously dropped out of the music business at the peak of her fame in order to care for her severely handicapped daughter. Snow did continue to make rare appearances and recordings. My favorite Phoebe Snow single, 1977's Shakey Ground, is not on YouTube for some reason. But below are two of her classics.

Poly Styrene, lead singer of the seminal 70's British punk band X-Ray Specs, has died of breast cancer at the age of 53. The band was best known for their hit single Oh Bondage, Up Yours, but I always liked the below track, which I believe was one of the first import 45s I ever bought. Only two months ago Styrene released her long-awaited comeback single, Virtual Boyfriend.

Provincetown Magazine laments the passing of local legendary street performer Ellie Castillo.

Ellie was Provincetown. Her spirit - one of reinvention, fun, glamour, joie de vivre - came through as she sang up and down Commercial Street year-round for the past decade, making her not only a town favorite, but also an instant icon. Ellie arrived in Provincetown at the age of 70 as Elliot. As her placard read, she came here, like so many others, to live her dream. A former minister, Ellie's own ministry of peace and love reached thousands. Never without a smile, Ellie loved Provincetown, and Provincetown loved Ellie – so much so that when Town Hall re-opened, Ellie sang one of her standards, Frank Sinatra's "Its Impossible", to an adoring crowd. Ellie will be remembered always for her kindness and commitment to this community. We'll all miss her.

Here's the performance mentioned above. You can see more of Ellie on her YouTube channel.

Geraldine Ferraro, who in 1984 became the first woman to be nominated for vice president, has died of cancer at the age of 75.

Ms. Ferraro passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital, surrounded by her loved ones. The cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for twelve years. Ms. Ferraro was seventy-five years old. Her family said "Geraldine Anne Ferraro Zaccaro was widely known as a leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice. To us, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and aunt, a woman devoted to and deeply loved by her family. Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed."

Here is Ferraro's historic acceptance speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention.

Pulitzer Prize-winning openly gay playwright Lanford Wilson died of pneumonia yesterday at the age of 73. Wilson is considered to have been one of the primary figures in the creation of New York's vibrant Off Broadway theater movement.

Mr. Wilson's work was first seen in such bohemian, downtown dens as Caffe Cino and Cafe LaMaMa E.T.C. His youthful colleagues included writers Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi and Jean Claude van Itallie. In 1969, he became a founding member of the Circle Repertory Company, which became an influential Off-Broadway hothouse of talent during the 1970s. There, many of his most significant works debuted, including The Hot l Baltimore and Talley's Folly. Mr. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for the latter, the central and most famous play in his Talley Trilogy, which tracked the adventures of several generations of the same Missouri clan.

Wilson's Burn This is one of the best plays I've ever seen. And the short-lived 1975 TV version of Hot l Baltimore, which featured one of television's first gay couples, was fantastic despite its reputation as Norman Lear's only sitcom "failure."

Details are sketchy, but it's being reported that Elizabeth Taylor died of congestive heart failure this morning in Los Angeles. She was 79. Gay men will perhaps most fondly recall Taylor for her early and relentless work as an HIV/AIDS activist.

Disco legend and gay favorite Loleatta Holloway has died at the age of 64. One of the most powerful and instantly recognizable voices of the genre, Holloway got her start in the 60s as an R&B singer, but in mid-70s she become better known as "the" voice of Salsoul Records, where she fronted the famed Salsoul Orchestra on smash disco hits that continue to be heavily played to this day.

Holloway achieved her greatest international fame in 1989 when her vocals for Love Sensation were sampled without credit on the Black Box hit Ride On Time, forcing her to sue. Two years later Love Sensation was again on the world's radios when Marky Mark sampled it heavily in his debut hit single, Good Vibrations. Most recently Holloway's We're Getting Stronger formed the basis for Whitney Houston's 2009 chart-topping Million Dollar Bill.

My favorite Loleatta Holloway tracks are her 1979 classic collaboration with Dan Hartman, Relight My Fire, and her two biggest hits with the Salsoul Orchestra, Hit And Run and Runaway, both from 1977. I last saw Loleatta perform during IML 1999, when she charmed the audience at the Chicago Eagle by threatening to put her foot up the ass of the audio man when the sound malfunctioned. You totally had to be there.

Jane Russell, voluptuous pin-up model and star of dozens of Westerns and musicals, has died at the age of 89. While her "scandalous" movies and photo shoots at times created controversies over censorship, in her later years Russell embraced far-right conservative Christian politics and openly accepted the label of "bigot." Perhaps best known politically for her anti-feminism and battles against abortion rights (including for rape and incest), in 2003 she told Australia's Daily Mail: "These days I’m a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist." Russell was an occasional guest on the anti-gay Praise The Lord show hosted by Jan and Paul Crouch, although I'm not finding any examples of her commenting on gay rights issues. For now, let's remember her from before the crazy years.

Perry Moore, 39, the openly gay executive producer of the wildly successful Chronicle Of Narnia movies, has been found dead in his Manhattan home of a suspected Oxycontin overdose.

Moore was found unconscious in the bathroom at about 9:30 a.m. by his partner, Hunter Hill, inside the W. Houston St. home they shared, the sources said. "We're in shock," said the producer's father, Bill Moore, 69, adding that he just spoke to his son the night before. "He was in a great, great mood," he said. "No one was expecting this." Moore - who with beau Hill wrote and directed "Lake City," starring Sissy Spacek and Rebecca Romijn - was pronounced dead shortly after responders arrived. The exact cause of death has not been determined, but sources said it appeared to be an overdose of OxyContin. "We're so sad," said his father. "He's been able to reach out and touch a lot of people."

The Narnia movies have grossed over $1.5B to date.

Broadway star and Golden Globes-winning television character actress Betty Garrett has died at the age of 90. Most of you will probably best remember Garrett as Irene Lorenzo, the wise-cracking feminist plumber next door on All In The Family or as landlady Enda Babish on Laverne & Shirley. In the 1940s Garrett had been a popular Broadway performer, but her subsequent movie career was cut short due to the congressional witch hunt regarding her brief dalliance with the Communist Party.

Five-time Oscar winning film composer John Barry has died at the age of 77. Here's a few of my favorites from his lengthy filmography.

Legendary fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who pioneered televised exercise shows, has died at the age of 96.

His agent Rick Hersh says LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast. Hersh says Lalanne ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end. LaLanne credited fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked over the next eight decades to transform others' lives, too. He said, "The only way you can hurt the body is not use it." LaLanne's workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to '70s. He maintained a youthful physique into his 80s.

LaLanne's television show ran for 34 years. His former health club chain is now known as Bally Total Fitness.

Legendary producer and concert promoter Don Kirshner has died at the age of 76. I spent many, many Saturday nights glued to Kirshner's Rock Concert series back in the 70s. The New York Times has posted a preliminary obit.

Don Kirshner, who guided the course of Brill Building and bubblegum pop in the 1950s and ’60s as a music publisher and promoter, and later served as an Ed Sullivan for 1970s artists like Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Kiss and the Ramones with his weekly program “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” on television, died on Monday in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 76. The cause was heart failure.

Here's Kirshner introducing America to the Ramones.