Lou Jacobi, Dec. 28, 1913 – Oct. 23, 2009, critically acclaimed actor of comic and ethic characters, has passed away at his home in Manhattan according to social worker, Leonie Nowitz, who oversaw his care. He was 95.

His career spanned over 5 decades with a debut on Broadway in 1955 playing Van Daan in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” He reprised the role in the 1959 film version earning praise from movie reviewers including this one from The New York Times Bosley Crowther describing Jacobi as, “irksomely sluggish and pathetically lax as the weakling Van Daan.”

Jacobi went on to appear in a total of 10 Broadway plays including Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water” and Neil Simon’s “Come Blow Your Horn.” He also made 24 feature films. I remember him as the florist in the Dudley Moore comedy “Author.” TV was not off limits either and Jacobi appeared often on “The Dean Martin Show.”In the summer of 1976, he was the main star - a Russian headwaiter living with nine other people in a small Moscow apartment – in the CBS comedy series, “Ivan the Terrible.”

Mr. Clive Barnes of The Times wrote about Lou Jacobi, describing him favorably whether or not he actually liked the production Jacobi was appearing in or not.

“Mr. Jacobi is a very funny actor who hardly needs lines to make his point,” Mr. Barnes wrote. He added: “He has a face of sublime weariness and the manner of a man who has seen everything, done nothing and is now only worried about his heartburn.”

Lou Jacobi stayed active in entertainment until late in life. He remained a critic favorite. Roger Ebert wrote in “The Chicago Sun-Times, “As you make your way through life, sometimes you happen upon people who know how to be happy…I look at Lou, and I’m not afraid to be 85, if I can get there in Lou’s style.”

Soupy Sales, Jan. 8, 1926 – Oct. 22, 2009, famous for his pie-in-the-face entertainment, has died at Calvary Hospice in New York after suffering from many health problems according to his former manager and friend Dave Usher. He was 83.

20,000 pies to the face and 5,000 live TV appearances across a half-century of laughs is the description of Soupy Sales who entertained generations on television series, game shows, radio broadcasts, comedic records and even late night television. At the height of his career, Sales was one of the best-known faces in America.

According to Usher, ``If President Eisenhower would have walked down the street, no one would have recognized him as much as Soupy.''

It was Soupy Sales hit show, “The Soupy Sales Show” was set up like a children’s show that propelled the comedian to the heights of his fame. In it, Sales appeared clad in a black sweater and oversized bow-tie. It featured puppets like White Fang, the meanest dog in the United States, and Black Tooth, the nicest dog in the United States among others. But it was the high point in every show where a sidekick would launch a pie into Sale’s face that everyone remembers.

The pie ritual became so well-known that becoming pie-faced turned into a badge of honor for other top celebrities. Frank Sinatra was the first to be hit in the face with Sales, then Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Martin and Burt Lancaster all lined up to take their turn. Audiences would sit in anticipation to see the favored celebrities of the day get slapped in the face with an exploding cream pie.

"A pie has to hit you and explode into a thousand pieces," Sales explained, "so you see the person's face and see it take away his dignity."

Pie throwing was elevated to an almost cult status. People had pie-throwing contests in their basements. Soupy Sales authority in pie-tossing even caused him to be called as an expert witness for a 1974 court-martial of a sailor accused of pitching a pie into an officer's face. Pie-hurling, Sales told the court, was "a harmless joke" designed to "relieve tensions and frustrations." Unfortunately the sailor was found guilty.

"A lot of people grew up watching me," he told The Times several years ago. "I'll probably be remembered for the pies, and that's all right. That's fine and dandy. I'm flattered."

Soupy Sales leaves behind Trudy Carson Sales, his wife of 29 years, sons Tony and Hunt, a brother and four grandchildren.

Joseph Wiseman, May 15, 1918 – Oct. 19, 2009, Canadian-born actor who appeared in the first James Bond big screen film, has died at his home in Manhattan after having been in declining health for some time according to his daughter, Martha Graham Wiseman. He was 91.

‘I thought it might be just another grade-B Charlie Chan mystery,’ said Wiseman of his role as Dr No in that first James Bond movie.

How wrong he was! He only had 20 minutes of screen time but has gone down in history as one of the best 007 villains. The character of Dr. Julius No, based on the books by Ian Fleming, is a member of Spectre – the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion.

From the movie:

"The four great cornerstones of power headed by the greatest brains in the world," Dr. No explains.

"Correction. Criminal brains," says Bond.

"A successful criminal brain is always superior. It has to be," retorts the cool, calculating Dr No impeccably dressed in a white Nehru jacket with sinister looking black, prosthetic hands.

Despite the fame that came with Dr. No, Wiseman’s daughter said that it wasn’t what her father wanted. "He was horrified in later life because that's what he was remembered for," she said referring to the role as Dr. No. "Stage acting was what he wanted to be remembered for."

So, here we are: Joseph Wiseman also had a long and impressive body of work on stage. Credits include, Broadway productions such as "Antony and Cleopatra," "Detective Story," "The Lark," "Incident at Vichy," "In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer" and a revival of "The Tenth Man." In 2001, he appeared also on Broadway in the National Actors Theater production of "Judgment at Nuremberg," playing opposite Maximilian Schell.

Joseph Wiseman is predeceased by his second wife who died in February of this year, dancer and choreographer Pearl Lang. He is survived by his daughter from his first marriage to Nell Kinard, Martha Graham Wiseman and his sister, Ruth Wiseman.

Woody Crocker, film and television art director and production designer, has died in Salem, Oregon due to Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 68.

He started in 1974 with an art directorial outing on "Sasquatch -- The Legend of Big Foot" and went on to work on numerous telefilms and TV series. He served as the production designer on the 1990 feature "Why Me?" Other credits include "Felicity," "Providence" and "Scrubs."

But it is “Northern Exposure that he is most noted for. He designed 103 episodes of the Alaskan set, winning an Emmy for art direction in 1992 and earning a nomination the following year. The series ran on CBS from 1990-1995.

Crocker leaves behind two sons, Tyke and James Crocker, two grandchildren; Marian Brown Crocker, his former wife of 11 years; and his longtime partner, Albert Cummings.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy, Nov. 3, 1919 – Oct. 18, 2009, British writer, interviewer and broadcaster responsible for exposing wrongful convictions, has died of pneumonia in a nursing home in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He was 89.

He was the British interviewer with the quizzical brow, the wry look of amusement and the ability to deliver a question that was sharply pointed yet laced with charm. His talent in investigative reporting launched such TV shows as “Your Witness,” “24 Hours,” “Panorama,” “Did You See?” and “Tonight.”

As a writer, Kennedy’s books were instrumental in reversing several murder convictions and one in particular resulted in creating such a scandal that it helped lead to the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. It was Kennedy’s book “10 Rillington Place” exploring the conviction and hanging of Timothy Evans that caused such a stir. Evans was accused of killing his baby daughter. Kennedy’s book brought to light that the murderer was instead the serial killer John Christie. It was made into a movie in 1971 starring Richard Attenborough as Christie and John Hurt as Timothy john Evans. Hurt was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Kennedy also wrote “The Airman And The Carpenter” which argued that Bruno Hauptmann did not, in fact, kidnap and kill Charles Lindbergh’s baby. That book was made into a HBO film titled “The Crime of the Century” in 1996.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy is predeceased by his wife Moira Shearer who died in 2006. He leaves behind a son and three daughters.

Vic Mizzy, Jan. 9, 1916 – Oct. 17, 2009, American composer of iconic film and television theme songs, has died of heart failure at his home in Bel-Air according to his friend Scott Harper. He was 93.

They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all together ooky,
The Addams Family.

And that was just one of the theme tunes Vic Mizzy wrote during his career. The Brooklyn-born composer, mostly self-taught, wrote the Addams Family” theme and had to sing it himself, overdubbing his voice several times when the production company refused to pay for singers. Mizzy, who also kept the publishing rights to the song, liked to joke about the success of the tune, "Two finger snaps and you live in Bel-Air."

Vic Mizzy though, hardly had just the two finger snaps. He is also the composer who came up with the theme song to “Green Acres.” He also wrote the themes for Phyllis Diller's 1966-67 sitcom "The Pruitts of Southampton" and "The Don Rickles Show" (1968-69), for which Mizzy also conducted the orchestra.

In film, he wrote songs for five Don Knotts films: "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," "The Reluctant Astronaut," "The Shakiest Gun in the West," "The Love God?" and "How to Frame a Figg."

In the 1996 book "TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From 'Dragnet' to 'Friends,' " author Jon Burlingame commented about Mizzy, "Vic was one of the wittiest composers I ever met, and he had an uncanny ability to incorporate his own personal sense of humor into his music."

Vic Mizzy is survived by his daughter, Lynn Mizzy Jonas; his brother Sol; and two grandchildren.

Rosanna Schiaffino, Nov. 25, 1938 – Oct. 17, 2009, Italian movie actress who appeared in film throughout Italy, France and England, has died. She was 70 years old.

In naming the Italian film beauties, we recall Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida…and Rosanna Schiaffino? Yes, Rosanna Schiaffino was iconic throughout the 1950s, 60s and early 70s. Today, however, she is all but unknown. Unlike her counterparts, Loren and Lollabridida, Schiaffino's movies never made it much into DVD and many of her movies were not subtitled or released into English-speaking countries.

During her time, however, Schiaffino's beauty and fame was legendary. With measurements of 36-22-35, her career was launched when she won the Miss Liguria beauty pageant at the young age of 14, thus capturing the eye of movie producers.

She first gained small, bit parts in not so great movies. But by the 1950s, she was getting better movie roles and making fame with her stunning photographs especially the ones highlighting her legs. She made it on the cover of "Picturegoer" and she was described as "green-eyed, red-haired, just eighteen . . . . She looks so lush, they say, that she has to have a bodyguard and a giant mastiff to protect her from wolves. Students attempt to kidnap her; suitors pester her day and night."

Then, in the 1960s, she appeared in "Teseo Contro Il Minotauro" (a.k.a."The Minotor"). Schiaffino played a dual role, both the evil Princess Phaedra and Ariadne, the sacrificial virgin. The film was released in English-speaking countries and it marked the start of her international breakthrough.

The movie “The Long Ships” also in the 1960s followed. She played a memorable performance in a scene where she was stabbed in the stomach by a Viking warrior. She dies in actor Sidney Poitier’s arms.The rest of the film, unfortunately was panned but she still remained busy and popular, appearing in numerous movie roles and gaining many magazine covers.

Abruptly in the 1970s, Rosanna Schiaffino stopped appearing in film. Today her movies are all but unknown. Many of her famous photographs have been lost and the world has missed a chance at mainstreaming another great Italian beauty.

Martyn Sanderson, Feb. 24, 1938 – Oct. 14, 2009, actor, director, writer and poet, has died at his home in Otaki. He was 71.

He was working with his wife Wanjiku Kiare, producing a play (“Muntu”) by the Kenyen playwright Wakanyote Njuguna when he died. The play was due to open only two days later. The family and cast decided to continued with the schedule to honor Sanderson's life.

And Sanderson’s life was quite unusual. Beginning with his birth to a missionary father and writer mother, it was devoid of any hospital luxury taking place in the back of a Model T Ford. He studied literature at Oxford where his teacher was no less than J R R Tolkein himself. He contemplated becoming a priest and ended up married living commune-style with a couple of other families in Hawke’s Bay.

Sanderson acted on screen, wrote documentaries and poetry, successfully mixing his unconventional lifestyle with moviemaking and winning several awards. In 1989, he was named best supporting actor in the New Zealand Film Awards for his portrayal of Frank Sargeson in “An Angel At My Table.”  He won a Feltex award in 1976 for his portrayal of aviation pioneer Richard Pearse and was nominated again for his historical TV epic “The Governor “ where he played a conflicted general, who is ordered to expel villagers from their lands.

He earned the title of “father of modern theater in New Zealand” after founding Downstage, the country’s longest-running theater. Then, in what seems a bit of a contrast, he is also considered to have one of New Zealand’s most recognizable voices…for doing commercials, in particular, as a petulant fisherman in the long-running Instant Kiwi advertisement.

Martyn Sanderson is survived by his wife Wanjiku Kiarie-Sanderson, daughters: Pippa, Niccola, Lucy and Emma, son Jamie and his step-son Kevin.

Willard V. Oliver, renowned Navajo code talker who served with distinction in WWII, has died at the Northern Arizona Veterans Administration Health Care System Hospital in Prescott. His son, Lawrence Oliver, stated that his father had been in declining health for the past two years. He was 88.

"I did not realize that until the Code Talkers were recognized that all the victories back during the war came about because of our Diné language," Willard V. Oliver said. "Sometimes I think about it. Why did the government want to use our language when throughout BIA school we would get our mouth washed out with soap when they caught us speaking Navajo?"

The Navajo language, which has a complex grammar, is only spoken on Navajo lands and was an unwritten language, was seen as answering the military requirement for an undecipherable code. The language syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects, make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and training.

The idea to recruit bi-lingual Navajo’s was accepted by the military, they were nicknamed code talkers and an initial 29 Navajo’s arrived at boot camp in May, 1942. That all-important group included Willard Oliver’s brother. He soon followed, enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps on March 23, 1943 and Willard Oliver served in the South Pacific with the 2nd Marine Division until 1945.

It was these Navajo code talkers that were the inspiration behind the John Woo directed 2002 movie, “Windtalkers” starring Nicholas Cage. The movie deals with marines trying to protect Navajo code talkers while fighting in Saipan.

In the fall of 1944, Willard V. Oliver was one of those code talkers fighting in the battle of Saipan. His left thigh was wounded and a piece of shrapnel was left to carry permanently in his shoulder. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star and he lost much of his hearing in his left ear from the artillery explosion that wounded him.

"I had an SCR 300 radio pack strapped to my back along with a carbine semi-automatic over my right shoulder," Oliver told his son. "While we were trying to get ashore (at Tarawa in 1943), the beach water was completely red with blood.

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. stated, "The late Willard V. Oliver was a renowned Navajo Code Talker who served the United States of America, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Navajo Nation during World War II with courage, honor and distinction. Willard V. Oliver endured the horrors of combat in the Pacific Theatre battles on the islands of Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa and Iwo Jima, and was the lead man in a radio platoon in a forward echelon against hostile forces."

Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, stated, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima."

“Windtalkers” won a Taurus Award for the Best Fire Stunt for a scene where a soldier wearing a flame throwing backpack is hit by a bullet and explodes into a ball of fire. The stunt man performs a full body burn and walks around completely surrounded by the fire. The stunt man falls to the ground and crawls on his hands and knees completely engulfed in flames until he is shot. It is hard to imagine that there were real people involved in a real life situation, not to mention the outcome of a key battle in a world war hanging in the balance.

Willard V. Oliver is a true American hero. "I am proud to be a Code Talker” he says, “And I know we counted for something great, and that we fought to maintain our freedom and for our sacred land."

Collin Wilcox Paxton, Feb. 14, 1935 – Oct. 14, 2009, television, film and stage actress, has passed away at her home in Highlands, N.C. of brain cancer according to her husband, Scott Paxton. She was 74.

"I got something to say, and then I ain't gonna say no more. He took advantage of me! And if you fine, fancy, damn ... ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch a' lousy yella stinkin' cowards ... the ... the whole bunch of ya. And your fancy airs don't come to nothin'. Your manners and your "Miss Mayella," it don't come to nothin' Mr. Finch!"

And with that tearful speech, Collin Wilcox, who played Mayella Ewell the young white woman who falsely accuses a black man (played by Brock Peters) of rape, created one of the most memorable scenes in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Philip K. Scheuer wrote at the time that Wilcox or, by her married name, Paxton, "gives a rather remarkable demonstration of histrionics as Mayella, the sullen, snarling victim of an alleged rape."

In a 2007 interview about her role in the movie, the North Carolina-native explained, "I had known girls from that kind of background… all the other girls trying out for the part were overly made up; they had curly, clean hair and wore brassieres and high heels...I wore a secondhand dress, tennis shoes with holes in them, and dirty little white socks. I rubbed cold cream through my hair -- that's why my hair looked so dirty."

But in an interesting twist to her on-screen persona, Paxton was actually involved in the 1950s civil rights movement. She recalled receiving "unfriendly looks" when she showed up at an NAACP conference in Monterey, Calif., where an official had to remind participants that: "Collin is here at this conference because she believes in the cause. She is not the character in the film."

Collin Wilcox Paxton was a seasoned actress before her role as Mayella Ewell and she went on to numerous other roles in film, on stage and on television. She is survived by her husband of 30 years, her children, Kimberley Horne, William Horne and Michael G. Paxton; and three grandchildren.