June 11, 2006

“Space Ghost” was among the designs of comic-book and animation artist Alex Toth. Hanna-Barbera Productions

EDWARD J. YATES, 87: The director of “American Bandstand” for 17 years, from a fledgling local TV show to a national institution that made Dick Clark a star, died June 2. In October 1952, Mr. Yates volunteered to direct “Bandstand,” a new show on Philadelphia's WFIL-TV. The show, featuring local teens dancing to the latest hits, debuted with Bob Horn as announcer and took off after Clark, already a radio veteran at age 26, took over in 1956. It was broadcast live in its early years, even after it became part of the ABC network's weekday afternoon lineup in 1957 as “American Bandstand.” Mr. Yates pulled records, directed the cameras, cued the commercials. “Ed was an extraordinary director. ... He managed to grab every exciting moment on 'American Bandstand,'” Clark told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a telephone interview. “The pictures he created influenced a whole generation of young people across America.” In 1964, Clark moved the show to Los Angeles, taking Mr. Yates with him. Mr. Yates, who retired from “American Bandstand” in 1969, began as a boom operator at WFIL after service during World War II. He was later promoted to cameraman.

ARNOLD NEWMAN, 88: The portrait photographer, whose pictures of some of the world's most eminent people set a standard for artistic interpretation in the postwar age of picture magazines, died Tuesday in Manhattan. Mr. Newman was credited with popularizing a style of photography that became known as environmental portraiture. Working primarily on assignment for magazines, he carried his camera and lighting equipment to his subjects, capturing them in their own environments and finding in those settings visual elements to evoke their professions and personalities. Perhaps his most celebrated image is a 1946 portrait of composer Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky, his expression deeply serious, is confined to the bottom left corner of the picture, cropped to his head and shoulders, an elbow resting on the piano, his hand supporting his head. The rest of the photograph is taken up by the raised lid of a large grand piano, strategically silhouetted against a blank wall, which is divided off-center into a gray-and-white rectangle. The lid forms the reversed shape of a leaning, abstract musical note. Mr. Newman, who first came to his trade by making 49-cent studio portraits at a Philadelphia department store, went on to become one of the world's best-known and most admired photographers, his work appearing on the covers of magazines such as Life and Look, in museum and gallery exhibitions and in coffee-table books.

ROCIO JURADO, 61: The singer and actress, who was a beloved figure in Spain and Latin America during a career spanning more than four decades, died June 1 after a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. A feisty Andalusian with feline eyes and flowing reddish hair, Ms. Jurado was known fondly as “la mas grande de España” – Spain's greatest. She recorded more than 30 records, performed on both sides of the Atlantic and appeared in nearly a dozen films, her first as a teenager. In 1985, she performed at the White House for President Reagan. Ms. Jurado – her full name was Maria del Rocio Trinidad Mohedano Jurado – was known for a powerful voice that blended traditional Spanish styles of flamenco, folk and romantic ballads. She won a slew of awards over the course of her career, including album of the year in Spain in 1980 and 1985, and various other honors in Venezuela, Mexico and the United States.

WALTER MEYERHOF, 84: A prominent nuclear physicist who taught at Stanford University for 43 years, Dr. Meyerhof died May 27 at a Los Altos nursing home of complications from Parkinson's disease. His passion for science began as a child in Kiel, Germany, after his father, Otto Meyerhof, a 1922 Nobel Prize winner for medicine, gave him a microscope. After escaping Nazi-occupied France with the help of Varian Fry, an American who helped more than 1,000 others to safety, Dr. Meyerhof came to the United States in 1940. He later co-founded a foundation devoted to educating young people about Fry's work. Dr. Meyerhof received his doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, then taught briefly at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before going to Stanford, where in the 1970s he served as head of Stanford's physics department and wrote two textbooks, including “Elements of Nuclear Physics,” an introductory work still in use. In 1977, he won the Dinkelspiel Award, given each year to the top Stanford teacher of undergraduates. He retired in 1992.

JAMES F. CONWAY SR., 78: The entrepreneur whose Mister Softee ice-cream trucks brought frozen treats to millions of customers over the company's 50-year history died May 28 of cancer. Mr. Conway and his brother William, who both worked at the Sweden Freezer company in Philadelphia, began experimenting with the idea of delivering ice cream by truck in 1955 under the company name Dairy Van. In 1956, Mister Softee was launched when the two brothers drove their first truck through Philadelphia. The ice-cream venture, which moved to New Jersey in 1959, eventually expanded to become a multimillion-dollar business with more than 600 trucks in 15 states. Mr. Conway served as vice president of privately held Mister Softee Inc. until he retired in 1998. His brother, who died in 2004, was president. The company is now run by their sons. Mister Softee is famous for the distinctive jingle that plays over and over from the trucks as they cruise through neighborhoods. In 2004, New York City noise officials wanted to silence the trucks' music, but the city backed down after a public outcry. Now ice-cream vendors can play music, but only when the vehicles are moving.

ALEX TOTH, 77: The maverick comic artist, who designed classic Hanna-Barbera adventure cartoons such as “The Superfriends” and “Space Ghost,” died May 27. Before working in animation, Mr. Toth was a comic-book artist widely regarded as brilliant. He rarely held on to an artist's job for long because of a simple, subtle drawing style and a stubborn adherence to his artistic principles. Born in New York, he settled in San Jose in the late 1950s. While living there, he worked for Dell Comics on titles derived from television shows such as “Sea Hunt” and “Zorro.” That led to animation work in Southern California, where he moved in 1964. Drawing for Hanna-Barbera in the 1960s and 1970s, Mr. Toth designed characters for adventure cartoons “Jonny Quest” and “The Herculoids” in addition to “The Superfriends” and “Space Ghost.” Gary Groth, editor of The Comics Journal, said Mr. Toth “was an artist's artist, just because of his mastery of the form.

PERRY RICHARDSON BASS, 91: One of the wealthiest Americans, Mr. Bass turned a small fortune inherited from his oil-wildcatter uncle into a bigger fortune with a series of smart investments. He died June 1. Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Bass' net worth at $1 billion last year. Mr. Bass was one of the last remaining links to a colorful era in Texas history, when wildcatters struck it rich in what were then some of the world's great oil fields. In the 1940s and 1950s, he worked alongside his uncle, Sid Williams Richardson, who made big oil finds. When he died, Richardson, a bachelor, left several million dollars to his nephew. Family members, especially Mr. Bass' four sons, increased their wealth many times over through shrewd stock investments in energy, entertainment and other industries in the 1980s. Forbes ranked Mr. Bass' four sons – Robert, Lee, Sid and Edward – as even wealthier than their father.

ARTHUR WIDMER, 92: The developer of some of the most widely used special-effects technology in films who earned an Academy Award last year for lifetime achievement died May 28 of cancer. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Mr. Widmer the award for his work in developing the Ultra Violet and “blue screen” special-effects processes. Working for Warner Bros. in the 1950s, Mr. Widmer developed the Ultra Violet Traveling Matte process, an early version of what would become known as blue screen, in which two images shot at different times and places could be combined into one. Mr. Widmer left Warner Bros. in 1964 to design and build the optical department for Universal Studios, where he continued the development of blue-screen and other visual effects until his retirement in 1979.

 »Next Story»