AP News, July 26th, 2007
Laszlo Kovacs
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) _ Laszlo Kovacs, a Hungarian refugee and master cinematographer whose stylistic inventions transformed cinema with such movies as "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces," has died. He was 74.
Kovacs died Sunday in his sleep, said his wife, Audrey Kovacs.
Laszlo Kovacs made about 70 movies over five decades. His work ranged from the gritty black-and-white portrayal of Depression America in "Paper Moon" to the saturated glamour of "Shampoo."
He became interested in cinematography while a student at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest.
During the 1956 revolt against the Communist regime, Kovacs and classmate Vilmos Zsigmond filmed the protests with a borrowed 35mm school camera hidden in a shopping bag, according to an obituary on the Web site of the American Society of Cinematographers.
As the Russian Army crushed the revolt, both men fled the country across the Austrian border with 30,000 feet of film stashed in sacks. They arrived in the United States in 1957. Some of the footage was later used in a television documentary.
In the 1960s, Kovacs made a series of low-budget motorcycle movies. When Dennis Hopper approached him about shooting the "Easy Rider," Kovacs wasn't enthusiastic, thinking it was just another biker movie.
But when Hopper acted out the story _ two friends on a cross-country journey to discover America _ Kovacs changed his mind.
Released in 1969, the movie won international acclaim and made a name for Kovacs. He went on to shoot or direct photography for dozens of other movies, including "Ghostbusters," "The Karate Kid," "Frances," "Mask," and "Miss Congeniality." He did additional photography for "The Last Waltz" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
He received the American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.
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Ulrich Muehe
BERLIN (AP) _ Ulrich Muehe, the German actor who captivated movie audiences with his performance as a Stasi agent in the Oscar-winning film "The Lives of Others," has died. He was 54.
Muehe died Sunday of stomach cancer in Walbeck, Germany, said the town's mayor, Brunhilde Vucke.
A well-known theater and TV actor in Germany, Muehe had ended weeks of speculation about his health by acknowledging just on Sunday he had cancer.
He was diagnosed with cancer in February, only weeks before Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others," won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film.
In it, Muehe plays a secret police surveillance expert in communist East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. His stoicism gradually melts as he becomes swept up in the lives of an artistic couple.
The role had particular resonance for Muehe, who was under surveillance by the Stasi when he was a star of East German theater. He later discovered that his then wife, German actress Jenny Groellmann, was registered as an informant for the Stasi during their years of marriage. She had denied she was an informant.
For his performance, Muehe last year won a Lola Award, the German equivalent of an Oscar, as well as the European Film Academy's award for best actor.
Born in Grimma, in communist East Germany, Muehe trained as a construction worker before serving in the military. He then studied acting in Leipzig at the Hans Otto Theaterhochschule, one of Germany's oldest acting schools.
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Ferrell Secakuku
PHOENIX (AP) _ Former Hopi Chairman Ferrell Secakuku, who helped resolve a longtime land dispute between his tribe and the Navajo Nation, has died. He was 69.
Secakuku, who disclosed this month that he had been diagnosed with cancer, had been in hospice care. He died Wednesday at a friend's home in Flagstaff, said his daughter, Kim Secakuku.
Born in the Village of Sipaulovi, Ferrell Secakuku served as chairman of the Hopi Tribe from 1994 to 1997. While in office, he facilitated the negotiation of the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement, which was worked out after a federal judge in 1991 ordered the two tribes to reach an agreement over land they had been quarreling over since the 1800s.
At the time, Secakuku said the agreement was important in providing a way for Navajo and Hopi families to live in harmony on the land in northern Arizona. The Hopi reservation covers more than 2,400 square miles and is surrounded by the much-larger Navajo reservation.
In 2006, Secakuku earned a master's degree in anthropology from Northern Arizona University. He planned to teach and expand the use of Hopi language.
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Tsang Tsou-choi
HONG KONG (AP) _ Graffiti artist Tsang Tsou-choi, whose incoherent Chinese calligraphy writings on public walls have been displayed in Venice and auctioned by Sotheby's, has died. He was 86.
Tsang had been in and out of hospitals since April and died of heart disease on July 15, friend Lau Kin-wai said.
Tsang is a household name in Hong Kong because of his brush-written lists of relatives' names _ with royal titles. Tsang called himself "King of Kowloon."
His calligraphy was eventually recognized by the international art world in 2003 when his work was displayed at the 50th Venice Biennial. He was heralded "probably the oldest graffiti artist in the world."
In 2004, auction house Sotheby's sold a piece by Tsang, along with a photograph of his street work, for $7,000.
