AP Features, May 12th, 2007
Charley Ane
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Charley Ane, a standout tackle for Southern California in the early 1950s and then an All-Pro lineman for the Detroit Lions, died Wednesday. He was 76.
And died in Honolulu of pneumonia following a long illness.
Ane graduated from Punahou High in Honolulu and attended Compton College in California before going to USC. The school confirmed his death.
Ane helped the Trojans to a 10-1 record in the 1952 season, including a victory over Wisconsin in the 1953 Rose Bowl. The Lions picked him in the second round of that year's draft. In seven years with Detroit, he was an All-Pro center-tackle and a member of the Lions' 1953 and 1957 NFL champs, and was team captain in 1958-59.
After his playing days, Ane returned to Hawaii, where he coached football at five high schools.
Ane, inducted into the USC Hall of Fame last weekend, also pitched for the Trojans' baseball team in 1951.
___
Bernard Gordon
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Bernard Gordon, a screenwriter blacklisted during Hollywood's anti-communist crusade in the 1950s, has died. He was 88.
Gordon died Friday at his Hollywood Hills home after a long battle with cancer, according to his daughter, Ellen Gordon.
Gordon wrote dozens of movies but many never carried his name until the Writers Guild of America began restoring credits to blacklisted writers in 1980. About a dozen of Gordon's credits were restored, more than any other writer, said Dave Robb, a longtime friend.
Among them was Gordon's co-writing credit on 1957's "Hellcats of the Navy," which starred Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
Gordon's movies included "55 Days at Peking," "Battle of the Bulge" and the 1962 science fiction cult classic, "Day of the Triffids," along with low-budget fare like "Zombies of Mora Tau."
In the 1950s, Gordon was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was investigating Communist influence in Hollywood. He was never called to appear but an acquaintance named him before the committee and he was fired from a studio and blacklisted, along with hundreds of other film industry workers. He worked under other names for years.
___
Theodore H. Maiman
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) _ Theodore H. Maiman, a physicist who built the first working laser in the United States and advocated for its use in medical applications, died Sunday. He was 79.
Maiman died at a Vancouver hospital from a rare genetic disorder called systemic mastocytosis, said his wife, Kathleen.
Maiman made his laser discovery in 1960, while working for Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, Calif., using a high-power flash lamp and a synthetic ruby crystal. He described his approach as "ridiculously simple," despite worldwide competition to be the first to develop a working laser.
Earlier in 1960, two other scientists were the first to register patents for an optical "maser," but there was no functioning device to support the paper patent. Then Gordon Gould, working for a defense researcher, filed competing patent claims and coined the word "laser" as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.
Maiman is widely credited in encyclopedias and the National Inventors Hall of Fame with being the first to create a working laser.
He worked for nearly the past eight years as an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, helping design the curriculum for a new biophotonics engineering program.
___
Bill Wagner
SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ Bill Wagner, a longtime Texas journalist who served as the executive editor of San Antonio's afternoon newspaper, died Monday. He was 65.
Wagner died after a lengthy illness affecting his central nervous system.
He was the managing editor of the San Antonio Evening News when President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. He and his staff put out seven editions that day, "just one after the other," said Sterlin Holmesly, who was managing editor of the Evening News' sister paper, the morning Express.
The two papers merged in 1984, becoming the San Antonio Express-News.
Wagner flew 35 combat missions as a B-17 navigator during World War II before landing his first job in journalism with the Houston Chronicle. He began work in San Antonio in 1947, working in nearly every capacity from reporter to managing editor at the morning and afternoon newspapers.
He later moved to Austin to work for the Texas Department of Human Resources and taught journalism at Concordia College in Austin.
At the time of his death, he was the editor of Texas' monthly publication of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
