Deaths (Obituaries)

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      in Television

      Nick Mavar, ‘Deadliest Catch’ Star, Dies at 59

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      Mr. Mavar, who ran a fishing operation in Alaska, starred in the reality television show for 16 years and captained his own boat.Nick Mavar, a commercial salmon fisherman known for his tenacity and resourcefulness who was also a deckhand on the Discovery Channel’s extreme fishing reality show “Deadliest Catch,” died on Thursday at a hospital in King Salmon, Alaska. He was 59.His death was confirmed by his wife, Julie (Hanson) Mavar. His nephew Jake Anderson said that Mr. Mavar had a heart attack on Thursday while on a ladder at a boatyard in Naknek, Alaska, where he ran his fishing operation, and fell onto a dry dock.He was pronounced dead at a hospital, Mr. Anderson said.The Bristol Bay Borough Police Department in Naknek confirmed that Mr. Mavar had died but declined on Friday evening to share additional details.“Deadliest Catch,” which follows crab fishermen on their strenuous and sometimes brutal job off the Alaskan coast, is one of the top-rated programs on basic cable, drawing millions of viewers.The show premiered in 2005, and Mr. Mavar appeared in 98 episodes, working on a fishing boat called the F/V Northwestern until 2021.Mr. Mavar left the show while filming an expedition in 2020 after his appendix ruptured, revealing a cancerous tumor, Mr. Anderson said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Martin Starger, Influential Shaper of TV and Movies, Dies at 92

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      In his decade at ABC, long the doormat network in prime time, he helped guide it toward the No. 1 spot. He later produced “Nashville” and won an Emmy for “Friendly Fire.”Martin Starger, who as a senior executive at ABC in the 1970s helped bring “Happy Days,” “Roots,” “Rich Man, Poor Man” and other shows to the small screen — and the network nearly to the brink of No. 1 in prime time — before turning to producing movies, most notably Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” died on May 31 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92.His death was confirmed by his niece, Ilene Starger, a casting director.Mr. Starger joined ABC in the mid-1960s and rose to positions of increasing importance, culminating in his promotion to president of ABC Entertainment in 1972. The entertainment mogul Barry Diller, who was one of his protégés at ABC, described Mr. Starger in an email as “the quintessential television executive of the 1970s.” He was, Mr. Diller said, the “essence of N.Y. smarts: suave, sophisticated and funny. He was culturally ahead of his audience but was pragmatic in his programming choices, but ever striving for better.”From left, Anson Williams, Donny Most, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler in an episode of “Happy Days,” one of the shows Mr. Starger helped bring to the air as an ABC executive.ABC Photo Archives/Disney, via Getty ImagesMr. Starger’s time at ABC was characterized by the network’s long struggle to break out of last place in prime time, behind CBS and NBC, in what was then a three-network universe.Mr. Starger and other executives balanced middlebrow programs, including “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Six Million Dollar Man,” with TV movies like “The Missiles of October” (1974), which dramatized the Cuban missile crisis, and prestigious mini-series like “Roots,” based on Alex Haley’s book about his family history.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Johnny Canales, Tejano Music Singer and TV Host, Dies

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      He was known for booking new acts on his program, including Selena Quintanilla, who performed on his show in 1985 in what was one of her first live TV performances.Johnny Canales, the Mexican television host whose program introduced new musical acts to wide audiences, including a young Selena Quintanilla in the 1980s, has died. His death was announced on Thursday by his show’s Facebook account. No additional details were given. His wife, Nora Canales, said in a video update on May 20 that he had been ill. Mr. Canales was believed to be in his late 70s or early 80s, though his year of birth was unclear.For many rising acts beginning in the 1980s, to be invited to perform on Mr. Canales’s bilingual variety show was considered a milestone and a chance to gain new fans on a program that was watched by millions.Some acts that performed on his show went on to become household names. He also became a popular TV host, known for introducing performances with his catchphrase: “You got it. Take it away.”“The Johnny Canales Show” debuted on KRIS in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1983. The program was later picked up by Univision, which expanded the show’s reach beyond South Texas.Mr. Canales had many groups and singers perform on his show over the years, including La Mafia, La Sombra, Los Temerarios and Ramon Ayala. But perhaps the one who went on to become the most popular was a teenage Selena Quintanilla, as Selena y Los Dinos, in 1985, in what was one of the singer’s first live TV performances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Remo Saraceni, 89, Dies; Inventor of the Walking Piano Seen in ‘Big’

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      His keyboard, which became famous after Tom Hanks melodiously hopped on it, displayed Mr. Saraceni’s vision of technology powered by “people energy.”Remo Saraceni, a sculptor, toy inventor and technological fantasist best known for creating the Walking Piano that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on in a beloved scene of the hit 1988 movie “Big,” died on June 3 in Swarthmore, Pa. He was 89.The cause was heart failure, said Benjamin Medaugh, his assistant and caretaker. Mr. Saraceni died at Mr. Medaugh’s home, where he had been living in recent years.Mr. Saraceni’s specialty was “interactive electronics,” he told New York magazine in 1976. His other inventions included a clock that could reply aloud when you asked it the time, a stethoscope stereo system that could boom out your heartbeat, and Plexiglas clouds that lit up at the sound of a whistle with a pastel color appropriate for a room’s lighting. All were powered by what Mr. Saraceni (pronounced SAR-ah-SAY-nee) called “people energy”: the voice, touch and heat of the human body.The power of this sort of technology to enchant its users became a pivotal plot element of “Big,” and in turn the central prop in one of the most fondly recalled scenes in recent movie history.After wishing to be “big” at a magical Zoltar fortunetelling machine, the movie’s main character, Josh Baskin, transforms from a 12-year-old boy into a young adult (played by Mr. Hanks). He gets a clerical job at a toy company whose owner, Mac (Robert Loggia), recognizes Josh as his employee one Saturday at F.A.O. Schwarz. Mac is a shrewd capitalist surveying his industry in action; Josh is a boy exulting in the world of toys (albeit in a man’s body).As Josh impresses Mac with his close knowledge of F.A.O. Schwarz’s wares, they happen upon Mr. Saraceni’s nearly 16-foot-long Walking Piano. With childlike absorption, Josh begins hopping on it to the tune of “Heart and Soul.” Mac, inspired by Josh’s un-self-conscious delight, joins him, making the performance a duet. To an awe-struck crowd, the two of them then do a rendition of “Chopsticks.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Patrick Gottsch, Champion of Rural TV Programming, Dies at 70

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      After a career as a satellite dish installer, he found success with RFD-TV, a 24-hour cable channel aimed at farmers and ranchers.A tractor-pulling contest in Rockwell, Iowa. “The Big Joe Polka Show.” A veterinarian discussing how to keep flies off cows. A rerun of a 1982 episode of “Hee Haw.”Those were some of the recent offerings on RFD-TV, a 24-hour channel created by Patrick Gottsch, a satellite-dish installer who had the idea to start a network aimed at the farmers and ranchers who were his customers.Its programing may not be the stuff of must-see television in urban and suburban America. But RFD-TV, which also carries gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Future Farmers of America convention, occupies an enduring, if narrow, niche on the television spectrum.Mr. Gottsch, whose spinoff properties include the Cowboy Channel, the Cowgirl Channel and Rural Radio, Channel 147 on SiriusXM, died on May 18 in Fort Worth. He was 70.His death, at a hotel in the city’s historic Stockyards district, was unexpected. His daughters Raquel Gottsch Koehler and Gatsby Gottsch Solheim said that the family was awaiting a medical examiner’s report to learn the cause, but that it was probably related to his history of diabetes.Mr. Gottsch, who grew up on a farm in Nebraska, fought tenaciously to prove that TV programming about agriculture, horses, the rural lifestyle and traditional country music could be viable — especially in his company’s early years, when, he liked to recall, investors and media executives told him that it was a “stupid idea” or that “farmers don’t watch TV.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Françoise Hardy, Moody French Pop Star, Dies at 80

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      Françoise Hardy, an introspective pop singer who became a hero to French youth in the 1960s with her moody ballads, died on Tuesday. She was 80.Her death, from cancer, was announced by her son, Thomas Dutronc, in a post on Instagram, saying simply, “Mom is gone.” No other details were provided.With songs like her breakthrough 1962 hit, “Tous les Garçons et les Filles” (“All the Boys and Girls”), and later “Dans le Monde Entier” (“All Over the World”); her lithe look, prized by star fashion designers; and her understated personality, Ms. Hardy incarnated a 1960s cool still treasured by the French.“How can we say goodbye to her?” President Emmanuel Macron of France said in a statement on Wednesday, a play on the title of Ms. Hardy’s 1968 hit “Comment Te Dire Adieu” (“How Can I Say Goodbye to You?”).She was the only French singer on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 200 best singers of all time.Ms. Hardy in 1969. Her singular look — tall, long brown hair, a natural reticence — catapulted her into the worlds of fashion and film. Joost Evers/Anefo, via The National ArchivesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Tony Lo Bianco, ‘French Connection’ Actor, Is Dead at 87

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      Once labeled a “natural-born heavy,” he shined onscreen and especially onstage, securing a Tony nomination and winning an Obie Award.Tony Lo Bianco, an actor whose film roles included villains in “The French Connection” and “The Honeymoon Killers” and whose stage career earned him stellar reviews for an Arthur Miller tragedy and an Obie Award for a baseball drama, died on Tuesday at his home in Poolesville, Md. He was 87.The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Alyse Lo Bianco, said.Mr. Lo Bianco made a vivid impression in “The Honeymoon Killers” (1970), a low-budget black-and-white film, based on a true story, that came to be regarded as a cult classic. With a heavy Spanish accent and serious sideburns, he played Raymond Fernandez, a con man who courted, married and murdered lonely women for their bank accounts, passing off his real lover (Shirley Stoler) as his sister. The British newspaper The Guardian called the film the movies’ first “super-realist depiction of the banality of evil.”Mr. Lo Bianco in “The Honeymoon Killers” with Mary Jane Higby, left, and Shirley Stoler. In that film, which was based on a true story, he played a serial killer.Roxanne Company, via Everett CollectionA United Press International writer once labeled Mr. Lo Bianco “a natural-born heavy” because of his dark hair, bushy eyebrows and sharp features. In “The French Connection” (1971), moviegoers saw him as the owner of a modest Brooklyn diner, Sal and Angie’s, dressed to the nines and driving a Lincoln with European plates, courtesy of international drug money. In “The Seven-Ups” (1973), he was a mortician at one of the Mafia’s favorite funeral homes.But Mr. Lo Bianco was a stage actor at heart. He won an Obie Award in 1975 for “Yanks 3, Detroit 0, Top of the Seventh,” in which he played Duke Bronkowski, a baseball player with age and time breathing down his neck who is trying to pitch a perfect game during his 14th season in the major leagues.Eight years later, he triumphed on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” (1983) as a Brooklyn longshoreman destroyed by his obsession with his 17-year-old niece. The performance brought him a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a play.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Norman Carol, Violinist in Historic Concert in China, Is Dead at 95

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      The concertmaster and first-chair violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra for decades, he took part in a diplomatic breakthrough in 1973 with concerts in Mao Zedong’s Beijing.Norman Carol, a former violin prodigy who was first chair and concertmaster for the acclaimed Philadelphia Orchestra for nearly three decades, accompanying it on a history-making trip to China under Mao Zedong in 1973, died on April 28. He was 95.His death, at an assisted living center in Bala Cynwyd, a community on Philadelphia’s Main Line, was announced in a statement posted on social media by the orchestra. It was not widely reported outside the classical music world at the time.As concertmaster, tuning the orchestra and overseeing the string section, Mr. Carol served under the celebrated conductors Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti and Wolfgang Sawallisch.“He was dashing, comfortable, even swashbuckling as a leader,” Paul Arnold, a violinist with the orchestra, said in the statement. “His playing was bold, expressive and hall-filling.” Mr. Carol “went on to personally embody the ‘Philadelphia Sound,’” he added.That fabled sound, which emerged under Leopold Stokowski and took shape under Ormandy, the orchestra’s longtime music director starting in the 1930s, is built on “distinctive honeyed timbre” emanating from its strings, as the journal Classical Voice North America noted in 2015, along with softer attacks from the brass section and a more blended percussion approach.The orchestra’s sound became known around the world in tours of Europe and Asia during Mr. Carol’s tenure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More