Catlike singer Earth Kitt has died at 81, of cancer. Born on a Southern cotton plantation, she got her break when she auditioned for a dance company on a dare.
Previously, she had been homeless in New York after being sent there to live with her aunt.
She performed on Broadway and in movies, TV, and plays (Orson Welles loved her in both senses of the word), but was most at home as a cabaret performer, where she could more effectively seduce her audience.
She voiced her opposition to the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon, and was blackballed from performing in the States for a while—so she performed in Europe and became even more popular there.
As every news outlet is noting, she was also known for the song "Santa Baby."
She told Reuters in 2005, "The audience is not supposed to know that I'm scared, the shyest person in the world."
[NYT]
Pinter was known for plays such as The Birthday Party and The Caretaker—and later in his career as a salon leftist with a reflexive and increasingly dated hostility to the United States. 
After spending 28 years in a coma, heiress Sunny von Bülow, 76, has died, 
If ever there was a grim picture of the current financial clusterfuck, it's the once artsy (Björk! sigur rós!), hip, and rich island nation wonderland of Iceland, which fell into 
Torfason, a 
Do you feel that tingly spark in the air today, especially as you near Times Square? It's because Total Request Live, MTV's long-running afterschool music video special is coming to an end after ten years, signing off on Sunday 
Writer John Leonard has died, according to 
After a long battle with cancer, science fiction's biggest crossover novelist Michael Crichton died today. Though the lanky Harvard graduate was most well known for his 1990 novel Jurassic Park, he leaves behind a sometimes controversial legacy of investigation into the most prominent scientific issues of our time. We review the highlights of his storied career:
Studs Terkel, Chicago's beloved author, interviewer, activist, radio host, and historian, died today at 96. Terkel's books Hard Times, Working, and The Good War are essential reading for students of American history in the first half of the 20th Century. He was a legendary storyteller and interviewer, and it's amazing to remember that not only did he publish his first book when he was already 55, but he then lived on to publish a dozen more, including one, P.S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening, set to be released next month. "Take it easy, but take it." [
Fred Baron, the attorney who rebuilt the Texas Democratic party and became famous, late in life, for his unfortunate help in covering up the extramarital affair of former Senator John Edwards, died Thursday of cancer. He was 61. Baron made a fortune in asbestos litigation, and used the funds to found the Texas Democratic Trust in 2005, among countless other philanthropic causes. In the Edwards affair, Baron was revealed as the source of the supposed "hush money" keeping mistress Rielle Hunter 
Guillaume Depardieu, the estranged son of renowned actor Gérard, died today from complications relating to pneumonia at a hospital outside Paris. He was 37. An actor himself, Depardieu received acclaim early in his career for the 1995 film The Apprentices. He costarred with his father in several films, most notably Aime ton père (A Loving Father) in 2002. Though, dark clouds seemed to often occlude his successes. 
Joerg Haider, the extreme right wing Austrian politician who once said the Nazis had "an orderly employment policy" and referred to the concentration camps as "the punishment camps of National Socialism," died in a car crash last night. He was 58. "Haider was pronounced dead in a hospital shortly after his Volkswagen Phaeton veered off the road outside Klagenfurt in southern Austria and overturned several times after he successfully passed another car, police said. Authorities said an initial investigation showed no signs of foul play. At the time of his death, Haider was governor of the province of Carinthia and leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austria—a party he formed after breaking away from the far right Freedom Party in 2005."
When we 
Longtime ultimate fighter and former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner was 
G Spa—the tiny, dank club in the basement of the Meatpacking District's Hotel Gansevoort—is closing on Saturday. It was a celeb-magnet and a dreadful place. It will not be missed. (We voted it the 
Jerry Ford,* the (dapper!) fellow pictured here, is dead at 83.** Ford founded Ford Models, one of the leading agencies in the seventies and eighties that legitimized the industry and gained renown for discovering Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, 
Someday, everyone reading this is going to die! And we should all get started on whatever we really want to do now, because the Grim Reaper could come to collect us at any minute. He's already come for Dave Freeman, co-author of 
As you stumble home drunkenly this evening, trundling down Stuart St. in Boston, or off of some semi-major highway in the greater Chicagoland area, don't plan on getting your faux-Irish crapbag food fix the way you've gotten it for years. Tonight, everything goes away. After three hundred and twenty-two devoted years of deep frying sandwiches (seriously, one bite and you died... in a good way) Bennigan's Grill & Tavern, known to some as Not-Applebee's, is 
Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University professor whose last lecture after being diagnosed with terminal cancer became a YouTube hit last year, has died at 47. (That turned into the bestselling book The Last Lecture.) Pausch, an award-winning computer science professor, had pancreatic cancer. After the jump, his famed lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams."
Estelle Getty, actress and adorable little old shrunken lady, 
Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, the wrestler and restaurateur who essentially introduced America to Japanese food with his Benihaha chain, died today in New York. He was 69. Aoki raised the money to start his first Benihana by driving an ice cream truck in Harlem, which is awesome. More recently, he's been known to New Yorkers through his children, model Devon and annoying scenester DJ Steve. He faced deportation in 2006, and you could do worse for an introduction to his colorful life than 
Stand-up comedian George Carlin, whose routine about forbidden words on the airwaves led to a key Supreme Court decision on government broadcast oversight, died of heart failure near Los Angeles. He was 71. Carlin had been admitted to the hospital earlier in the day with chest pains. He launched to fame in the 1960s as a straightlaced, suit-and-tie comedian appearing on programs like the Ed Sullivan Show as characters like the "hippie-dippie weatherman." By the 1970s, he was doing more risque material in long hair and jeans, and his performance of the routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" prompted an obscenity trial in Milwaukee, plus the Supreme Court fight, which arose from the airing of a similar routine on the radio in New York and an FCC fine. 
Florent, the long-standing neighborhood 24-hour bistro that's welcomed 7a.m. clubbers and regular folk alike since 1985, has been warning of its demise for months now. The owner, Florent Morellet, vowed to stay open for as long as he could. Now it's official: the last day of business will be June 29th—the rent went up to over $30,000 a month. Frank Bruni eulogizes the restaurant 
Artist 
