U.K. gossip legend Nigel Dempster has passed away at the age of 65. [Guardian]

The Telegraph says it all in a sentence:

Former U.N. secretary-general and Austrian President Kurt Waldheim has passed away at the age of 88. We don't know whether Heaven really exists, but if it does we're sure he's busy not committing atrocities against civilians in that happy place right now. He's probably just supervising.

David Halberstam, who died yesterday in an auto accident at the age of 73, will be forever linked to the reporting he did as a young journalist in Vietnam. He was one of the first reporters to note the intractability of that conflict, as well as the corruption of U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government. For this he earned both the scorn of at least one administration and the Pulitzer Prize. He left the Times somewhat acrimoniously and began a full-time career as a nonfiction writer.

Maybe now he'll figure out why there's nothing rather than something.

In this age of shiny Chris Wragges and sultry Sade Baderinwas, WNBC stalwart Ralph Penza was an old-time New York T.V. reporter, grandly provincial and not afraid to lend some gravitas to even the silliest news-you-can-use investigations (see: "Killer Fish"). He also memorably found a fugitive hiding in Cuba. Somebody should fix the man's Wikipedia page, which currently reads, "The respected reporter's life was lost on February 16, 2007 after what is being reported to be a 'long illness.'" Penza would never have used the passive voice.

You might know Sidney Sheldon solely for writing the gilt-covered bestsellers your grandma keeps in her beach bag, but there was much more to the prolific novelist than books with titles like Rage of Angels and The Other Side of Midnight. Sheldon, who died yesterday afternoon of complications from pneumonia, was also an award-winning screenwriter, garnering a best original screenplay Oscar for 'The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer' in 1947. But it was later, in 1965, that he made one of his most lasting and important contributions to American pop culture: he created and produced 'I Dream of Jeannie, ' the sexy genie-in-a-bottle sitcom which touched the lives (and, let's face it, the groins) of a generation of American boys. Next time you listen to Christina Aguilera or dress up as a slutty genie for Halloween, remember to pour out a libation for Sid, who was truly a master.

Author Sidney Sheldon Dies at 89 [AP]

In the end no man can escape the cold embrace of the grave, which today claimed humorist Art Buchwald, who put up a fairly good struggle against it. Buchwald, a native of Queens, spent the last year defying the odds after kidney failure and the amputation of his leg. Buchwald began writing a column for the New York Herald Tribune in 1953 which was eventually syndicated around the world. While much of his humor appears staid and dated today, it's hard to overestimate the influence he had on his profession. (A column he wrote explaining Thanksgiving to the French in 1953 has been reprinted every year subsequently.) He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. The time has come, Art Buchwald went. Rest in peace, Art.

To a generation of theater folk who spend most of their time at Angus McIndoe, Sardi's is something of a museum; even with its refurbishment in the early nineties, the place still has the feel of something that was best experienced in a bygone era. But in that era, there was no restaurant more associated with Broadway and the folks who toiled in its industry. Vincent Sardi Jr., who died yesterday at 91, was its heart and soul. Born and bred in Manhattan, Sardi's father opened the original restaurant in 1921; it moved to its present confines six years later. Sardi, Jr., who took over in 1947, built on the restaurant's reputation as a place where stars could dine undisturbed and anyone with a love of the theater was welcome. The Times obituary has this rather telling anecdote:

Note to future Gawker guest editors: see, this is why we don't use our one fairly earnest recurring feature, And Now He's Dead, as a joke to 'mourn' the deaths of DJs and sitcom creators. Oh well. It's a teaching moment.
Our 38th President, Gerald R. Ford Jr., is dead at 93. The only president never elected either to the presidency or vice presidency, he took office in the wake of the Watergate scandal. "Our long national nightmare is over," he said in his inaugural address, and though permanently restoring the country's faith in government proved too slightly too tall an order for Ford or, well, anyone, he did make a great deal of progress in that direction. Though he served for only 2 1/2 years, during that time he ended the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, helped mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Egypt, signed the Helsinki human rights convention with the Soviet Union and traveled to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East to sign an arms limitation agreement with Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev. He also launched the careers of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, but hey, nobody's perfect. Famous for being candid, in a State of the Union address in 1975, he told Congress, "the State of the Union is not good." Rest in Peace, Mr. Ford, and thanks for keeping it real.

If you've ever sat next to a speaker waiting, just waiting, for the newest "ill" club joints to drop, you knew Carl Blaze. If you've ever worked the Bronx nightclub circuit, you knew the name well. His real name was Carlos Rivera, and he died this weekend after being shot in an Inwood apartment building on December 7.

Lost in this weekend's coverage of the death of James Brown is the sad news that the man who gave us Lionel Jefferson has passed at the age of 57. Mike Evans may not have actually been from Queens, but since he's "movin' on up" now, we'll just pretend he was. Evans, a "credit to his race," evidently didn't "stifle himself," as had been reported previously. Rather, the co-creator of Good Times had been suffering from a form of throat cancer he'd inherited from Weezie, his appropriately named TV mother.

If you're inclined to make the argument that music executives have as much, if not more, influence on the state of the art as the acts that they sign simply by virtue of signing them, you couldn't choose a better figure to prove your case than Ahmet Ertegun, the Atlantic Records founder who died yesterday at the age of 83. Ertegun, the son of a Turkish diplomat, loved music - specifically black music - in the manner of a pure obsessive, and it doesn't overstate his importance to say that the acts he signed, either initially or at critical points in their careers, more or less shaped the sound of the second half of the last century. Any other tribute we could provide would be superfluous, so we'll just give a quick list of some of the more amazing talents in his stable: Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (fuck you, "Teach Your Children" is an amazing song no matter how many car commercials it gets used in), Big Joe Turner... what more is there to say? Rest in peace, Ahmet.

Peter Boyle, best known as the crotchety grandfather on the beloved sitcom Everybody Loves Italian-American Stereotypes, has passed away at the age of 71. Boyle's other big role was that of the monster in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, but those interested in seeing another side of his acting abilities are advised to seek out the 1970 New York City classic Joe, which is best described by AllMovie's Paul Brenner:

George W.S. Trow, the media critic and essayist, has died at the age of 63. Trow is best known for Within the Context of No Context, an article he wrote for the New Yorker (they've made part of it available here) and later expanded into a book. (Also worth a read: My Pilgrim's Progress.) Trow's thirty year association with the New Yorker ended in 1994, when then-editor Tina Brown brought on Roseanne Barr to guest edit an issue. The Times obit quotes the lacerating back-and-forth between Trow and Brown:

Former New York Times managing editor Gerald Boyd, who was forced to resign in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, died of lung cancer yesterday at the age of 56. Though his career pre-Blair was storied — he was the youngest journalist ever chosen for a prestigious Nieman fellowship, and a series he worked on as the Times's first black city editor won a Pulitzer — his race and his position linked him inextricably in people's minds to Blair's dramatic plagiarism flameout. Especially in the minds of CNN.com's copyeditors, apparently.