By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 4, 2008; 10:30 PM
-- Buddy Dial
HOUSTON (AP) _ Buddy Dial, a star receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers who also played for the Dallas Cowboys, has died. He was 71.
Dial, who had been hospitalized recently for treatment of cancer and pneumonia, died Friday in a Houston hospital. The Steelers confirmed his death.
Dial played in the NFL for eight years _ with the Steelers from 1959-63 and the Cowboys from 1964-66. He still holds the second-highest per catch average in NFL history at 20.8 yards. In 1963, he caught 60 passes for 1,295 yards and nine touchdowns.
Dial was born in Ponca City, Okla., and played at Rice. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1992 and the National High School Hall of Fame in 2002.
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Gary Gygax
MILWAUKEE (AP) _ Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and is widely seen as the father of the role-playing games, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.
He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.
Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.
Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity.
Gygax also was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of fantasy books, including the Greyhawk series of adventure novels.
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Donald Lopez
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Donald Lopez, the deputy director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and a veteran World War II fighter pilot, died Monday of a heart attack, museum director Jack Dailey said. He was 84.
Lopez joined the Smithsonian in 1972 and was part of the team, led by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, responsible for planning and opening the air and space museum in 1976. Museum curators and administrators said he provided much of the institutional and aviation knowledge that guided the museum for decades.
Before his career at the museum, Lopez was an aviation legend in his own right as a fighter pilot in the 23rd Fighter Group of the 14th Air Force in China. He had enlisted at age 19 and flew Curtiss P-40s and North American P-51 Mustangs. Lopez flew 101 missions and tallied five victories to become a World War II "ace." His skills as a combat pilot later qualified him to become an Air Force test pilot.
Lopez served an assignment at the Pentagon before earning a bachelor's degree at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a master's degree in aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology.
He also served as an associate professor of aeronautics at the U.S. Air Force Academy for five years and retired from the Air Force in 1964. He then worked on the Apollo-Saturn V launch vehicle and the Skylab project for NASA as a systems engineer at Bellcomm, Inc.
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Leonard Rosenman
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Leonard Rosenman, a film and television composer who won two Oscars and two Emmys during his 50-year Hollywood career, died Tuesday. He was 83.
Rosenman died of a heart attack at his home at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, said family friend Jon Burlingame.
A New York native, Rosenman was a concert composer when his friend James Dean introduced him to director Elia Kazan. Kazan asked the composer to write the score for "East of Eden," thus beginning Rosenman's film career. He went on to score dozens of films and television shows.
Rosenman won back-to-back Academy Awards in 1975 and '76 for his work on "Barry Lyndon" and "Bound for Glory." He was nominated twice more for his original scores for "Cross Creek" in 1983 and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" in 1986.
He also won Emmy Awards for his TV-movie scores for "Sybil" in 1976 and "Friendly Fire" in 1979.
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Lionel Mark Smith
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Lionel Mark Smith, a stage, movie and TV actor who was a regular in David Mamet's productions, died of cancer on Feb. 13, friend Paula Fins told the Los Angeles Times. He was 62.
Smith appeared in seven Mamet films and many of his plays, including one production that created a controversy in Los Angeles.
Mamet's "Oleanna," about a university professor who is accused of sexual harassment, was to debut at the downtown Mark Taper Forum in 1994 but stalled when Mamet insisted that Smith play the professor.
Taper officials considered Smith an unknown and were concerned that he would be unable to carry the play. Smith, who is black, and Mamet suggested that racism was involved.
Smith did appear in another local production of "Oleanna" in a smaller theater.
He was born in Chicago in 1946. His three-decade movie career included dozens of mainly minor appearances in movies and TV shows, including "Days of Our Lives" and "The Unit." His last role was as a homeless man in last year's movie comedy, "Stuck."