AP News, July 11th, 2007
Francis "Bucko" Kilroy
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) _ Francis "Bucko" Kilroy, a former New England Patriots executive who was known throughout the league as a top talent scout, has died. He was 86.
Kilroy died Tuesday, the team announced.
Kilroy was a six-time All-Pro guard for the Philadelphia Eagles during a 13-season playing career in the 1940s and 50s.
During a 64-season NFL career, including 36 years with the Patriots, Kilroy also worked in player personnel and scouting for the Eagles, Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, and mentored others who went on to lead NFL scouting departments.
He was one of the founders of the National Football Scouting Combine, and had been a scouting consultant for the Patriots the past 13 years.
Kilroy, a Philadelphia native, joined the team as personnel director in 1971, and selected two of New England's Hall of Famers, John Hannah in 1973 and Mike Haynes in 1976. From 1976-78, Patriots teams he built compiled a 31-13 record including two playoff appearances. He was New England's general manager from 1979-1982, and vice president from 1983-1993.
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Charles Lane
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) _ Charles Lane, the prolific character actor whose name was little known but whose crotchety persona and roles in hundreds of films made him recognizable to generations of moviegoers, has died. He was 102.
Lane died Monday night, said his son, Tom Lane.
He appeared in such film classics as "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "Twentieth Century." He also had a recurring role as the scheming railroad man, Homer Bedloe, on the 1960s TV sitcom "Petticoat Junction" and appeared often on "I Love Lucy."
His crisp, stage-trained voice and no-nonsense appearance made him a natural for playing authority figures. He was a judge in "God Is my Partner," a prosecutor in "Call Northside 777," a priest in "Date With an Angel" and a member of Clark Gable's newspaper editorial board in "Teacher's Pet."
Although the roles provided a good living, Lane objected to being typecast.
He turned to the stage for variety, appearing in a wide range of roles in more than 100 plays, most of them at the storied Pasadena Playhouse.
He was eventually spotted by a Warner Bros. scout and cast in his first movie, an Edward G. Robinson-James Cagney melodrama, "Smart Money," in 1931.
Lane remained at Warner Bros., sometimes working in three or four pictures a day. He would be rushed from one set to another and handed his few lines.
Lane continued to act into his 90s, and when he accepted an award from cable television's TV Land channel in honor of his 100th birthday, he made a point of saying he was still available for work.
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Doug Marlette
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) _ Doug Marlette, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who recently turned his incisive wit toward a budding career as a novelist, has died in an auto accident in Mississippi. He was 57.
Marshall County Coroner John Garrison said the accident occurred in heavy rain about three miles east of Holly Springs. He said he believed the truck hydroplaned, then struck the tree.
Marlette started his cartooning career in 1972 at The Charlotte Observer and most recently was on staff at the Tulsa World. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his work at The Observer and the Atlanta Constitution, the same year The Observer won the Pulitzer's public service award for its work detailing the misuse of funds by Jim Bakker's PTL television ministry.
Marlette published two novels, "The Bridge," in 2001, and "Magic Time," in 2006.
He received death threats for a cartoon he drew in 2002 that depicted a Muslim driving a rental truck with a nuclear weapon on board. Above were the words, "What Would Muhammad Drive?"
Marlette graduated from Florida State in 1971 and joined The Observer the next year. After more than a decade in Charlotte, he moved to the Atlanta Constitution before stops at New York Newsday and the Tallahassee Democrat.
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Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, a pioneer of the modern historical romance novel marked by strong heroines, detailed period settings and steamy sex scenes, has died. She was 68.
Woodiwiss died Friday of cancer at a hospital in Princeton, Minn., said her son, Sean Woodiwiss.
Her first book, "The Flame and the Flower," became an instant best-seller in 1972.
Woodiwiss published 13 novels during the past 35 years, and all made The New York Times list of best-sellers, her publisher said in a statement announcing her death. Her books focused on the relationship between a helpless heroine and the hero who rescued her, featured longer plots, controversial situations and characters, and impassioned sex scenes.
Woodiwiss received a lifetime achievement award from the Romance Writers of America in 1988.
She was born Kathleen Erin Hogg in 1939 in Alexandria, La. She met her husband, Ross Woodiwiss, at a dance when she was 16 and he was an Air Force lieutenant. His Air Force career took them to Japan and, eventually, Minneapolis.
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Leon Zelman
VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ Leon Zelman, the head of an organization promoting Jewish culture in Austria, has died. He was 79.
Zelman, head of the Jewish Welcome Service Vienna, died Wednesday morning after a long illness, Vienna's city hall said in a statement.
Zelman, who was born in Poland in 1928, survived the Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Ebensee concentration camps, where he was liberated by U.S. forces in May 1945, according to the Jewish Welcome Service's Web site.
In 1946, Zelman came to Vienna, where he graduated from school and later studied journalism. In 1980, he founded the Jewish Welcome Service with the support of former Mayor Leopold Gratz, the Austria Press Agency reported.
