sigrid valdis

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) ― The actress who played Col. Klink's sexy blond secretary Hilda on "Hogan's Heroes" and married the show's star, Bob Crane, has died. She was 72.

Patricia Crane died on Oct. 14, a spokeswoman for the Orange County coroner's office confirmed Monday. On stage, Crane was known as Sigrid Valdis.

Crane died of lung cancer at her daughter Ana Sarmiento's home, her son said.

"One of her last wishes in her will was that the funeral have no press, so we didn't contact the press (when she died), to honor her wishes," son Scotty Crane told the Los Angeles Times.

Crane played Hilda for five seasons on "Hogan's Heroes," the 1965-71 CBS situation comedy about Allied prisoners in a World War II German POW camp. Hilda and Bob Crane's Col. Hogan flirted playfully in front of the screen, but in 1970 were married for real ― on the show's set.

Eight years later, Crane was found bludgeoned to death in an apartment in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Patricia Olson was born in 1935 in Bakersfield, Calif., and grew up in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, finding both runway and print modeling jobs as a teenager.

After graduating high school, she moved to Europe and then to New York City, where she studied acting and continued her modeling career.

Her film credits include "Our Man Flint," "Two Tickets to Paris," "Marriage on the Rocks," and "The Venetian Affair." In addition to "Hogan's Heroes," she appeared on other television series, including "The Wild Wild West" and "Kraft Mystery Theater."

She retired from acting after her son's birth in 1971. She moved from the Los Angeles area after Crane's death in 1978. In 1998, she joined the cast of her son's syndicated weekly sketch comedy radio show, "Shaken, Not Stirred," which originated in Seattle.

In 2004, she returned to live in her childhood home in Westwood.

In addition to her son and daughter from her marriage to Crane, the twice-widowed actress is survived by a daughter from her first marriage, Melissa Smith; and five grandchildren.
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) ― Patricia Crane, who played Col. Klink's sexy blond secretary Hilda on "Hogan's Heroes" and married the show's star, has died. She was 72.

Crane, who was known on stage as Sigrid Valdis, died Oct. 14, a spokeswoman for the Orange County coroner's office said. She died of lung cancer at her daughter Ana Sarmiento's home, her son said.

Crane played Hilda for five seasons on "Hogan's Heroes," the 1965-71 CBS situation comedy about Allied prisoners in a World War II German POW camp. Hilda and Bob Crane's Col. Hogan flirted playfully in front of the screen, but in 1970 were married for real ― on the show's set.

Eight years later, he was found bludgeoned to death in an apartment in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Patricia Olson was born in 1935 in Bakersfield, Calif., and grew up in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, finding both runway and print modeling jobs as a teenager. After graduating high school, she moved to Europe and then to New York City, where she studied acting and continued her modeling career. She retired from acting after her son's birth in 1971.

In 2004, she returned to live in her childhood home in Westwood.

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John Hughey

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ― John Hughey, a steel guitar player who toured for years with country legend Conway Twitty and recorded with Elvis Presley and many other stars, has died. He was 73.

Hughey died Sunday, his publicist said. The Tennessean reported that he died of heart complications.

The Elaine, Ark., native was credited with developing a unique style of playing that focused on the instrument's high tones, resulting in a distinctive "crying sound."

He started playing professionally in the early 1950s with a Memphis-based band, Slim Rhodes and The Mother's Best Mountaineers, before playing for about 20 years with Twitty, who was a schoolmate of Hughey's when his family lived in Horn Lake, Miss.

Hughey later recorded songs with Presley, Loretta Lynn, Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson, Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers and others. He recorded and toured with Vince Gill for about 12 years.

He still played live regularly with The Time Jumpers, a Western swing band composed of top Nashville session players.

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Samuel Leonard

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) ― Samuel Leonard, a Cornell University professor whose pioneering work in reproductive endocrinology in the 1930s led to development of the birth control pill, has died. He was 101.

Leonard died Nov. 12, the university announced.

Leonard was credited with the idea of using estrogen as a contraceptive. He prevented pregnancy in rats with the female sex hormone in a 1931 study, three decades before human birth control pills hit the market.

That same year, Leonard authored a paper reporting that the ovaries and testes were regulated by two pituitary gonadotropic hormones: the follicle-stimulating hormone and the luteinizing hormone. His discovery came at a time when hormones were just being discovered and there was debate over whether there were one or two gonadotropic hormones.

Leonard was born in Elizabeth, N.J. He earned his bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in 1927 and both his master's (1929) and doctoral (1931) degrees from the University of Wisconsin.

After working as a National Research Council Fellow at Columbia University and an assistant professor at Union College and Rutgers, Leonard joined the Cornell faculty in 1941. He became a full professor in 1949.

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Ellen Mueller-Preis

VIENNA, Austria (AP) ― Ellen Mueller-Preis, who won Olympic gold in fencing at the 1932 Los Angeles Games, has died. She was 95.

Mueller-Preis died Sunday of kidney failure in a Vienna hospital, according to the Austrian Olympic Committee.

Born in Berlin, Mueller-Preis moved to the Austrian capital in 1930. Two years later, she represented Austria at the 1932 Olympics and won the gold medal.

Mueller-Preis won bronze medals at the 1936 Berlin Games and the 1948 London Olympics. She also won fencing world titles in 1947, '49 and '50. In 1949, she was named Austrian female athlete of the year.

After retiring from competition, Mueller-Preis had a long career as a consultant to Vienna's prestigious Burgtheater, where she helped ensure that fencing performed in plays was properly done.

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Milo Radulovich

DETROIT (AP) ― Milo Radulovich, an Air Force Reserve lieutenant championed by CBS-TV newsman Edward R. Murrow when the military threatened to decommission him during a Cold War anti-communist crackdown, has died. He was 81.

Radulovich died Monday in Vallejo, Calif., after complications from a stroke, family members said. He was 81.

He served as a consultant on the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck," based on Murrow's journalistic challenge to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The movie included the Radulovich case and the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings that led to the senator's downfall.

Radulovich was born in Detroit, joined the Air Force Reserves, worked as a meteorologist in Greenland, then enrolled at the University of Michigan on the GI Bill.

In 1953, the Air Force threatened to decommission him on grounds that he maintained a "close and continuing relationship" with his father and sister. The military said they were suspect because of the father's subscription to a Serbian newspaper and his sister's political activities.

Radulovich refused the military's demand that he denounce his father and sister.

"He was well aware of his historical importance," Al Fishman, husband of Radulovich's sister Margaret, told The Detroit News. "He put his finger in the dike when the flood of McCarthyism inundated the country."

"He was one of my heroes," Fishman told the Detroit Free Press.

Murrow's "See It Now" aired a segment, "The Case Against Lt. Milo Radulovich," in October 1953. The next month, the Air Force reversed its declaration that Radulovich was a security risk.

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Jim Ringo

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) ― Jim Ringo, a Hall of Fame center who played 15 seasons for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles, has died. He was 75.

Ringo died Monday after a short illness. His wife, Judy, said her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1996 and recently developed penumonia. She said the couple moved to Chesapeake, Va., about 10 years ago and that her husband lived at home for much of that time until moving to a treatment unit in Virginia Beach.

The Packers drafted Ringo out of Syracuse in the seventh round in 1953, and he became one of the league's best centers despite being undersized at just over 200 pounds.

But Ringo turned his relatively small size into an advantage, leading the way on the power sweep that made the Packers' offense so effective.

Ringo played for Green Bay through 1963, but a contract dispute led Ringo and coach Vince Lombardi to part ways. According to Packers folklore, Ringo had the audacity to bring an agent with him to negotiate a new contract ― and Lombardi traded him to Philadelphia on the spot.

Ringo played for the Eagles from 1964-67. He was voted to 10 Pro Bowls and was chosen for the NFL's All-Decade Team of the 1960s. He started in a then-record 182 consecutive games from 1954-67.

Ringo later went in to coaching. He replaced Buffalo Bills coach Lou Saban part of the way through the 1976 season, and the Bills lost their last nine games. He returned the following year, and the Bills went 3-11. Ringo was fired after the season and replaced by Chuck Knox.

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Dick Wilson

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Dick Wilson, the character actor and pitchman who for 21 years played an uptight grocer begging customers "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin," has died. He was 91.

Wilson died Monday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, said his daughter Melanie Wilson, who appeared on the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers."

Wilson made more than 500 commercials as Mr. George Whipple, a man consumed with keeping bubbly housewives from fondling toilet paper. The punch line of most spots was that Whipple himself was a closeted squeezer.

The first commercial aired in 1964 and by the time the campaign ended in 1985 the tag line and Wilson, a former Canadian airman and vaudeville veteran, were pop culture touchstones.

During his run as Mr. Whipple, Wilson also performed on the dinner theater circuit, shot occasional standup comedy shows and worked on dozens of TV sitcoms. He played the drunk on several episodes of "Bewitched" and appeared as various characters on "Hogan's Heroes," "The Bob Newhart Show," and Walt Disney productions.

Born in England, Wilson moved to Canada as a child. His father starred in a vaudeville minstrel show and his mother was a singer. He served in the Canadian Air Force during World War II and became a U.S. citizen in 1954, he told the AP.
Ferdinando Baldi (1917-2007) - Italian filmmaker who co-directed David and Goliath, featuring Orson Welles (who directed his own scenes). He also directed Ringo Starr in the spaghetti western Blindman, wrote and directed the spaghetti westerns Texas, addio (Goodbye Texas aka Texas, Adios), Rita nel West (Crazy Westerners, aka Rita of the West), Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria (Forgotten Pistolero, aka Gunman of Ave Maria) and Django, Prepare a Coffin and co-directed Duel of the Champions and The Tartars (also starring Welles). He died November 12. (Film.it)
Rabbi Philmore Berger (c.1927-2007) - Real-life rabbi who played the rabbi performing the burial of "Mickey" (Burgess Meredith) in Rocky III. He died November 1. (Oceanside/Island Herald)
Michael Blodgett (1940-2007) - Actor and screenwriter who appears in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, There Was a Crooked Man ... and Roger Corman's The Trip. He co-scripted Turner & Hooch, Rent-a-Cop and 1991's Run, which starred Patrick Dempsey. He adapted his own novels, Hero and the Terror and The White Raven and choreographed the beach party pics A Swingin' Summer and The Catalina Caper. He was formerly married to Family Ties mom Meredith Baxter. He died November 14. (Bright Lights After Dark)
Ronnie Burns (1935-2007) - Former actor-turned-real estate investor who starred in Anatomy of a Psycho and appears in Bernardine. He was the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen. He died of cancer November 14, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Delahoussaye (c.1949-2007) - Cinematographer of They Still Call Me Bruce, Inner Sanctum and Across the Tracks, which starred Brad Pitt. He also shot many Playboy videos and was a camera operator on Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo, Dunston Checks In and U.S. Marshals. He died of multiple myeloma November 8, in Los Angeles. (Houston Chronicle)
Mervyn "Buck" Edwards (?-2007) - Location manager for The Muppet Movie, first assistant director on Richard Sarafian's The Bear and second assistant director on The Competition, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Lee Remick. He died November 13. (LA Times)

Norman Erlich (1934-2007) - Argentine actor who appears in El Abrazo partido (The Lost Embrace), Catch the Heat and La Peste (The Plague), which starred William Hurt and Robert Duvall. He died of leukemia November 6, in Buenos Aires. (Variety)
Don Fellows (1922-2007) - Actor who plays military characters in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman II (he's also featured in the recent video game version), Eye of the Needle, Inside Out and Twilight's Last Gleaming. He also appears in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Velvet Goldmine, Pretty Poison, Haunted Honeymoon and The Omen. He died October 21 in London. (Telegraph)
Bernard L. Kowalski (1929-2007) - Director of the snake-themed horror pic SSSSSSS, which MSN last week called one of the worst-titled films of all time. He also directed Krakatoa, East of Java, Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Leeches. He was twice nominated for an Emmy for producing the series Baretta and he was apparently Brian Grazer's uncle. He died October 26 in Los Angeles. (Variety)
Deborah Lee (c.1949-2007) - Unit production manager for Sudden Death (and line producer), Murder in the First (also co-producer), Mad Dog and Glory, Scorsese's Cape Fear and Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations, for which she was also an executive producer. She also co-produced Imaginary Heroes and Scenes of the Crime and was the New York location manager for Prizzi's Honor. She died October 22 in Los Angeles (Variety)

Ira Levin (1929-2007) - Novelist who wrote the novels Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, Sliver, A Kiss Before Dying and The Boys of Brazil, all of which were turned into successful films, some of them more than once. He also wrote the plays-turned-movies Deathtrap, Critic's Choice and No Time for Sergeants. He died of a heart attack November 12, in Manhattan. (Variety)
Chip Monk (?-2007) - Camera person for Monster, Facing the Giants and The Waterboy. He died in a car accident November 11. (Day Rate for Chip)
Francine Parker (c.1926-2007) - Producer-director of the controversial antiwar documentary F.T.A., which follows Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and others on their infamous tour of Vietnam. She died of heart failure November 8, in Los Angeles. (LA Times)
Mario Sánchez (1936-2007) - Argentine actor who appears in Catherine's Grove and many films by Enrique Carreras, including El Profesor Punk and Los Extraterrestres. He died of diabetes November 7, in Villa Carlos Paz, Cordoba, Argentina. (Variety)
Sigrid Valdis (1935-2007) - Actress best known as the sexy secretary character "Hilda" on TV's Hogan's Heroes. She also appears as one of James Coburn's live-in playmates in Our Man Flint and with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in Marriage on the Rocks. She is also the widow of Hogan's star Bob Crane and was portrayed by Maria Bello in the Crane biopic Auto Focus. She died of lung cancer October 14, in Anaheim, California. (LA Times)

Monty Westmore (c.1923-2007) - Oscar-nominated make-up artist for Hook. He also worked on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jurassic Park, Se7en, Chaplin, Rio Lobo, The Towering Inferno, Alien Nation, Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection, among many more. He worked many times for Robert Altman and for Paul Newman, and his father was Gone With the Wind make-up artist Monte Westmore Sr. He died November 13 in Woodland Hills, California. (Variety)
Masakazu Yoshizawa (c.1950-2007) - Japanese flautist who specializes in shakuhachi (bamboo flute) and appears as one of the Shamisen musicians in Memoirs of a Geisha. He's also prominently heard as a soloist in the score to that film, as well as in the scores to Jurassic Park, TMNT, The Joy Luck Club and the Karate Kid sequels. He died of stomach cancer October 24, in San Gabriel, California. (LA Times)
Peter Zinner (1919-2007) - Oscar-winning editor of The Deer Hunter; he was also nominated for The Godfather and An Officer and a Gentleman. Other films he edited include In Cold Blood, The Godfather: Part II and the recent documentary Running with Arnold. As a music editor, he worked on Sam Fuller's The Naked Kiss, Richard Brooks' Lord Jim and the American-release version of King Kong vs. Godzilla. Other roles include actor (in The Hunt for Red October), producer (of A Gun, a Car, a Blonde) and director (of The Salamander, which starred Anthony Quinn). He died after a long illness November 13, in Santa Monica, California. (LA Times)