AP News, June 10th, 2007
Friedrich Adolph
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) _ Friedrich Adolph, the last surviving sailor in Uruguay from the famed German battleship Admiral Graf Spee, died Friday, his family said. He was 89.
Adolph had been "very sick," according to his grandson, Tobias Friedrich Adolph.
The Graf Spee was considered one of the most sophisticated battleships of its time when it sank off Uruguay's coast at the outset of World War II.
It prowled the South Atlantic, sinking as many as nine allied merchant ships before warships from Britain and New Zealand tracked it down and damaged it during the "Battle of the River Plate" that began on Dec. 13, 1939.
The damaged Graf Spee limped into Montevideo harbor where injured and dead sailors were taken ashore. To prevent it from falling into enemy hands, the Graf Spree's German captain later dynamited it and sank it a few miles from Montevideo.
It was not immediately known whether there are other survivors living in Argentina or elsewhere.
The ship has remained for decades in waters less than 30 feet deep only miles outside Montevideo. In 2004, a recovery group using a barge with a crane raised a piece of an early radar system called a telemeter from the Graf Spee. In February 2006, they also removed a Nazi bronze eagle, weighing more than 800 pounds, from the ship's bow.
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Charles Cochran
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Charles Cochran, a pianist and arranger who contributed to popular recordings by a number of country music artists, died Thursday of injuries from an automobile accident. He was 71.
Cochran was a first-call player and arranger for hit producers Allen Reynolds, "Cowboy" Jack Clement and Garth Fundis, for whom he did session work on records by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Crystal Gayle and Charley Pride, among others.
Cochran also worked with some of Nashville's troubadours _ John Prine, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt among them.
Cochran wrote songs that were recorded by artists ranging from Ronnie Spector to Dr. Hook.
Along Music Row, he was known for the way he relished life and for his outsized sense of humor.
A classically trained musician born in Midway, Penn., Cochran started playing the piano at the age of 4. He later toured with the band of his high school classmate, the pop singer Bobby Vinton.
During his years of military service he taught at the Navy School of Music, then located in Washington D.C. and played in the U.S. Navy Band.
Prior to moving to Nashville in 1971, Cochran was a session musician in New York, where he continued to work, playing piano on beer commercials for Miller and Budweiser and on the hit TV series The Incredible Hulk.
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Harry Frazier
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Stage and screen actor Harry Frazier, whose full white beard helped him land Santa Claus roles in movies and commercials, has died. He was 77.
Frazier died May 26 of complications from diabetes at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, said Jaime Larkin, a spokeswoman for the hospital.
Born in 1929, Frazier started appearing in various Broadway plays in the 1960s. He performed regularly in Shakespeare plays in Southern California and had leading roles in "The Tempest," "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Henry IV."
His TV credits included "Night Court," "Cheers" and "Hill Street Blues." He also played King Neptune on three "Power Rangers" episodes in 2000.
His career took an upswing in the 1990s when he was tapped to play Santa Claus on the big and small screen.
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Nellie Lutcher
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) _ Nellie Lutcher, who played piano for blues singer Ma Rainey at the age of 11 and gained prominence as a jazz vocalist in the 1940s and '50s, died in Los Angeles. She was 94.
Lutcher's most noted hits, "Hurry on Down" and "He's a Real Gone Guy," came early in a career she continued well into her 70s.
Lake Charles had been planning a fall tribute on Lutcher's 95th birthday. An American Press reporter was in Los Angeles to interview her and was with one of her nephews when another, Gene Jackson, called to say she had died Friday in hospice care.
Lutcher's father was a bass player who worked for a packing company, and Lutcher began playing early. At age 8, she was an assistant pianist at New Sunlight Baptist Church in Lake Charles.
She moved to Los Angeles in 1935 and played with small groups before signing 12 years later with Capitol Records, the first of several labels for which she recorded.
