Damn.

Via e-mail:

Paul Conrad, whose fiercely confrontational editorial cartoons made him one of the leading political provocateurs of the second half of the 20th century and helped push the Los Angeles Times to national prominence, has died. He was 86.

Conrad died early today of natural causes, surrounded by his family at his home in Palos Verdes, said his son David.

Conrad won three Pulitzer Prizes, a feat matched by only two other cartoonists in the post-World War II era, while both thrilling and infuriating readers for more than 50 years with an unyielding liberal stance, rendered in savage black and white.

Mayors, governors and presidents cringed at the prospect of being on the business end of Conrad’s searing pen, while many Southern Californians made him their first stop as they sifted through The Times, the newspaper that was his principal home for nearly 30 years.

More soon at http://www.latimes.com/

Songwriter George David Weiss, who helped pen Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” passed away from natural causes yesterday at his home in Oldwick, New Jersey. Weiss, who was 89, helped transform Solomon Linda’s 1939 song “Wimoweh” into the Tokens hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and served as president of the Songwriters Guild of America from 1982 to 2000.  

Beyond writing songs performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Tom Jones and Janis Joplin (who covered “Stay With Me”), Weiss collaborated on several Broadway musicals and wrote film scores. In 2000, Rolling Stone traced the roots of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” from South African Zulu musician Solomon Linda’s original version “Mbube” (or “Lion”) to Pete Seeger’s rendition “Wimoweh” (Seeger misheard the opening refrain of “uyembube,” or “you’re a lion”), and then on to Weiss’ rewritten version “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which the Tokens made a hit. For more on the saga behind of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and the lawsuits that followed, check out our story “In the Jungle” via Rolling Stone All Access.

An icon and a fighter. God rest.

Patricia Neal, the willowy, husky-voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963′s “Hud” and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died on Sunday. She was 84.

Neal had lung cancer and died surrounded by her family at her home in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard.

“She faced her final illness as she had all of the many trials she endured: with indomitable grace, good humor and a great deal of her self-described stubbornness,” her family said in a statement.

Neal was already an award-winning Broadway actress when she won her Oscar for her role as a housekeeper to the Texas father (Melvyn Douglas) battling his selfish, amoral son (Paul Newman).

Less than two years later, she suffered a series of strokes in 1965 at age 39. Her struggle to once again walk and talk is regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation. She returned to the screen to earn another Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations.

Sigh. Via an e-mail news alert:

WASHINGTON (AP) NPR says longtime journalist Daniel Schorr has died at age 93.

Via NPR:

Daniel Schorr, a longtime senior news analyst for NPR and a veteran Washington journalist who broke major stories at home and abroad during the Cold War and Watergate, has died. He was 93.

Schorr, who once described himself as a “living history book,” passed away Friday morning at a Washington hospital. He was able to bring to contemporary news commentary a deep sense of how governmental institutions and players operate, as well as the perspective gained from decades of watching history upfront.

“He could compare presidents from Eisenhower on through, and that gave him historical context for things,” said Donald A. Ritchie, Senate historian and author of a book about the Washington press corps. “He had lived it, he had worked it and he had absorbed it. That added a layer to his broadcasting that was hard for somebody his junior to match.”

Please follow the link for more.

Wasn’t he a character on Seinfeld?

NEW YORK - A person close to George Steinbrenner tells The Associated Press that the New York Yankees’ owner died Tuesday morning.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had not yet made the announcement.

Via.

One of my 100% all time fav bands.

LONDON, June 25 (UPI) — Pete Quaife, former bassist for the British rock band the Kinks, has died after undergoing kidney dialysis for more than a decade, the BBC said Friday.

He was 66.

The cause of the musician’s death was not immediately reported.

Quaife co-founded the Kinks and played on the band’s earlier hits including “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night” and “Dedicated Follower of Fashion.” He left the group after five years in 1969 and was replaced by John Dalton, the BBC noted.

This was kind of my brother’s theme song, since he was 6 foot 8 in high school. He died a few years ago, but this song just always made me happy and reminds me of John. RIP Jimmy Dean.

Jimmy Dean, singer, sausage businessman, dies at 81

RICHMOND, Va. – Jimmy Dean, a country music legend for his smash hit about a workingman hero, “Big Bad John,” and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday. He was 81.

His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home.

She told The Associated Press that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.

“He was amazing,” she said. “He had a lot of talents.”

Born in 1928, Dean was raised in poverty in Plainview, Texas, and dropped out of high school after the ninth grade. He went on to a successful entertainment career in the 1950s and ’60s that included the nationally televised “The Jimmy Dean Show.”

In 1969, Dean went into the sausage business, starting the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in his hometown. He sold the company to Sara Lee Corp. in 1984.

Man, what a life he must have had. The first time I saw the cover of The Lodger I just loved the way his legs wrapped around to the back. And Alladin Sane? Groundbreaking music and cover. I remember kids having to hide the cover from their parents because of the gender bending. More indepth (and interesting) article here.

LONDON, June 5 (UPI) – Famed 1960s British photographer Brian Duffy has died after a long battle with lung disease. He was 76.

Duffy, who was part of the “Black Trinity” photographers along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan, was best known for his iconic fashion photos that appeared in such glossies as Glamour, Harper’s and Esquire. He also created album art for three of David Bowie’s records, the most famous of which is the “Aladdin Sane” photo.

Duffy notoriously destroyed some of his photos in 1979 after one of his staff members asked him where he kept his toilet paper.

In a 2009 interview, Duffy said of the incident, “I realized I was chairman, CEO and senior stockholder in my business, and now I was responsible for the toilet paper,” The Daily Telegraph reported.

Awww, what a funny lady.

“She passed away at 1 a.m. this morning,” her manager, Barbara Lawrence, tells PEOPLE. “She had a massive stroke.”

McClanahan, who played man-happy Blanche Devereaux on the still-popular ’80s sitcom Golden Girls, had suffered a minor stroke earlier this year while recovering from bypass surgery. Lawrence also said that at the time of her death Thursday, McClanahan “had her family with her. She went in peace.”