AP News, August 16th, 2007
Chester F. Collier
WELLINGTON, Fla. (AP) _ Chester F. Collier, an Emmy winning producer best known for shaping the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, died from diabetes complication Wednesday, the organization said. He was 80.
Collier was a longtime network television producer and executive with media outlets including CNBC and Fox News. As president of Group W and Westinghouse Broadcasting, he also oversaw the development and production of the Regis Philbin Show and the Merv Griffin Show.
Always a dog lover, Collier took his passion to the competitive level, showing Bouviers des Flandres in the 1960s and winning more than 50 Bests In Show. He later turned the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show into a sold-out Madison Square Garden event with millions of viewers on live television.
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Stanley Myron Handelman
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Stanley Myron Handelman, who for decades took his subtle, brainy brand of humor to comedy clubs, TV screens and workshops for aspiring comics, has died. He was 77.
Handelman died of a heart attack Aug. 5 in Mission Community Hospital in the San Fernando Valley, his sister, Harriette Kaledin, said Wednesday.
Known for his trademark newsboy cap and oversized glasses, Handelman became a TV variety show fixture in the 1960s and 1970s, appearing frequently on "The Tonight Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show," and "The Merv Griffin Show."
His comic observations during his regular appearances as a down-on-his-luck pushcart salesman on "Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers" in 1968 and 1969 brought him additional prominence.
Handelman was born in New York City's borough of Brooklyn, where his high school classmates voted him "class wit." He developed his comedy act at New York area clubs in the 1950s, eventually appearing as a frequent opening act for Frank Sinatra.
As Handelman's career as a television comic ebbed in the 1970s, he began teaching standup comedy classes in Los Angeles until his death. Some of them under the moniker "The Flying Handelmans."
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Jirair S. Hovnanian
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) _ Jirair S. Hovnanian, an immigrant who founded two building companies, has died. He was 80.
Hovnanian died Tuesday at his home in Mount Laurel, said his grandson, Garo Hovnanian, a member of the third generation involved with J.S. Hovnanian & Sons, of Mount Laurel.
Jirair Hovnanian started the company in 1964 after splitting from a company he started with his three brothers. One of those brothers, Kevork Hovnanian, started a company that eventually became Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., a publicly traded company based in Red Bank.
The two companies have no business relationship.
Hovnanian had been in and out of the hospital recently for small ailments and because he had been outside in last week's heat watching his company build a house for ABC's television show, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," his grandson said Wednesday.
Over the past four decades, J.S. Hovnanian & Sons built more than 6,000 homes, mainly in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties, the company said.
Jirair Hovnanian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, where his father, Stepan K. Hovnanian, an Armenian refugee, was a builder.
Jirair Hovnanian came to the United States in 1948 and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1952. He and his brothers formed Hovnanian Brothers Corp. in 1959 and built homes in New Jersey before starting separate companies about five years later.
In 2006, Hovnanian received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for contributions to America by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations Inc.
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Tikhon Khrennikov
MOSCOW (AP) _ Tikhon Khrennikov, who headed the Soviet Union of Composers for four decades and denounced Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev as decadent, has died. He was 94.
Khrennikov died Tuesday in his home in Moscow, but news reports did not give other details.
Khrennikov was a favorite of several Soviet regimes, earning top Communist Party awards for numerous symphonies, operas and songs that glorified the Soviet Union.
In 1948, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin appointed him to head the Union of Composers _ a position he held until the Soviet collapse in 1991. At the first congress of composers after his appointment, Khrennikov denounced fellow composers Shostakovich and Prokofiev for "Western decadence" and deviating from principles of "socialist realism."
However, he protected them and several other Soviet composers seen as dissidents from arrest and prosecution, according to his official biography.
Despite his connections and efforts, Khrennikov was unable to save his two brothers who were arrested in 1937 at the peak of Stalin's political purges and later died in custody.
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Sam Pollock
MONTREAL (AP) _ Sam Pollock, who built a hockey dynasty as vice president and general manager of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1960s and 1970s, has died. He was 81.
His death was confirmed to the RDS television network by his son, Sam Jr.
Pollock set the standard that other NHL GMs have been measured.
As the architect of the Canadiens dynasties, Pollock was considered the shrewdest evaluator and dealer of talent of his era. He pulled off brilliant moves to land greats like Guy Lafleur and Ken Dryden, and built a team that was the class of the league.
The Montreal native, born on Christmas 1925, won nine Stanley Cup titles during his tenure as general manager from the 1964-65 season to 1978.
Pollock sent two undistinguished prospects to the Boston Bruins for the rights to Dryden, then a relatively unknown goaltender at Cornell University who would grow into a Hall of Famer. That was one of his best moves, but his acquisition of Lafleur cemented his reputation.
Among the first to recognize that the entry draft, inaugurated in 1963, was the key to team building, he found fellow general managers from the six clubs that joined the NHL in the expansion of 1967 willing to take aging, yet well-known players in exchange for draft picks.
In May 1970, he sent Ernie Hicke and a first-round choice to Oakland for the obscure Francois Lacombe and the now defunct Seals' first-round pick. All the while, he kept his eye on the gifted Lafleur, who was tearing up junior hockey with the Quebec Remparts.
The following season, when it appeared that Los Angeles might finish last and claim the top pick, Pollock sent veteran Ralph Backstrom to the Kings to boost them ahead of Oakland. That allowed Montreal to choose Lafleur first overall in the 1971 draft.
Lafleur went on to become the best player of his era, and his No. 10 is retired by the Canadiens.
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Robert Todd Williams
HEALDSBURG, Calif. (AP) _ Robert Todd Williams, a Russian River vintner who founded Toad Hollow Vineyards and turned it into one of Sonoma County's most recognizable wine labels, has died. He was 69.
Williams, whose younger brother is actor Robin Williams, died Tuesday at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, according to the Healdsburg-based winery. He had suffered from a heart condition in recent years.
Williams, also known as "Dr. Toad," partnered with vintner Rodney Strong to open Toad Hollow Vineyards in 1993 and turned the boutique winery into a major wine producer over the past 14 years. Its labels feature irreverent names and drawings of dapper toads and frogs.
Robert Todd Williams grew up in rural Versailles, Ky. and mixed drinks at more than a dozen different saloons, taverns, nightclubs and restaurants from Oklahoma to Chicago before getting into the wine business. In the 1980s, he started a marketing company called Hillside Estates to bring exposure to specialty wineries.
His mission was to strip away the mystique and make wine inclusive, said longtime friend Susie Selby, a winemaker and fellow winery owner.
