Clay Felker, founder of New York magazine – a publication he once described as a guide to “how the power game is played, and who are the winners” – died this morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 82 and had been battling cancer of the throat and mouth. Felker started New York in 1964 as a Sunday supplement to The New York Herald Tribune; when that paper folded he collaborated with graphic designer......

George Carlin, a native of Morningside Heights, died of heart failure yesterday in California. He was 71. The iconoclastic comedian was famously arrested (pictured) after doing his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine during a 1972 performance in Milwaukee (you can see video of a 1978 performance after the jump). When the words were later aired on WBAI, the ensuing lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled in......

There's a very notable NY Times obituary today: "Tony Schwartz, a self-taught, sought-after and highly reclusive media consultant who helped create what is generally considered to be the most famous political ad to appear on television, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan." The ad is the "Daisy Ad," which was produced for Lyndon Baines Johnson's election campaign in 1964. Here's the Wikipedia description, video is above:The advertisement begins with a little girl (Birgitte......

The Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack whose films include Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Way We Were and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, died this afternoon in his Los Angeles home. The cause was cancer. Pollack grew up in Indiana and headed to New York City when he was 17, joining The Neighborhood Playhouse and studying acting under Sanford Meisner. He acted, but, according to the NY Times obituary, Burt Lancaster told him to direct,......

Groundbreaking postwar artist Robert Rauschenberg died last night at the age of 82. The adventurous painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, set designer and composer was born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg on Oct. 22, 1925, in Port Arthur, Texas, a small refinery town with little cultural stimuli. (In his adult life he took the name Robert.) His father worked for a local utility, and the family’s lifestyle was so financially tight that, according to the Times, Rauschenberg’s mother......

Photo of Marvin Sylvor's Bryant Park Carousel courtesy WallyG. World renowned merry-go-round designer Marvin Sylvor has saddled up for the great carousel in the sky following a kidney failure. He was 75. The Bronx-born Sylvor’s love for the fanciful rides dated back to his childhood, when his father, hell-bent to get to Rockaway beach, would always refuse to stop so the young Sylvor could ride a carousel near the Marine Park Bridge. Sylvor found his......

At a lively memorial for Norman Mailer held yesterday at Carnegie Hall, the esteemed author’s son claimed to channel his father’s spirit, a feat that turned into a tongue-in-cheek impersonation of Mailer that brought the house down. According to the Post, 42-year-old Stephen Mailer, one of nine Mailer children, stepped up to the podium, raised his arms like a revivalist, and shouted "Come on, old man, I'm all yours.”He then fell to the ground as......

William F. Buckley died in his Connecticut home today, at age 82. Some consider him the founder of modern conservatism, as he authored the seminal book in 1951 God and Man at Yale, in response to what he saw was an encroaching secularism at one of the nation's top universities, during what was considered one of the nation's most buttoned-down eras. In fact, Buckley was prescient in foreseeing the social revolution of the 1960s. After......

Actor Roy Scheider died yesterday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, after battling multiple myeloma for several years and suffering complications from a staph infection. He was 75 and had been living in Sag Harbor, New York (after moving out his house in Sagaponack that Billy Joel purchased). Scheider may be best known for his role as Police Chief Martin Brody in Jaws. One of his lines from the movie,......

Charles F. Luce, who was Con Ed's chairman and chief executive between 1967 and 1982, died last week at the age of 90 in California. The Bronxville, NY resident died of prostate cancer. The NY Times notes that unlike most "big business executives," Luce was a liberal Democrat and environmentalist. He took a considerable amount of heat for a NYC blackout during the summer of 1977 and faced angry shareholders who didn't appreciate their dividends......

Known for her smoky voice and role as Bob Newhart's no-nonsense wife in The Bob Newhart Show, Suzanne Pleshette died at age 70 last night. Pleshette had suffered from lung cancer in recent years. Pleshette was born in NYC and attended LaGuardia High School, aka the High School for the Performing Arts. She started on Broadway in 1957, eventually replacing Anne Bancroft in The MIracle Worker, and started to star in some TV series around......

Photograph of Washington Square Park chess table by Paulo C on Flickr Brilliant, reclusive and eccentric, Chicago-born and Brooklyn-bred Bobby Fischer died at age 64 in Iceland. His spokesman said the cause was kidney failure, after a long illness. Fischer, who grew up playing in chess clubs in Brooklyn and Manhattan, beat Boris Spassky in a 1972 match, becoming the first and only American to become world champion, a Cold War hero, and popularized......

Vincent Gruppuso, the pudding cup king of Long Island, passed away recently, leaving his multimillion dollar Kozy Shack Enterprises behind. The 67 year old dessert tycoon had spent his life turning his tiny, one-man operation into a multinational operation employing 400 employees at three plants in Hicksville, California and Ireland. Last year the company sold over 115 million cups of pudding and pastries. Cause of death? Diabetes. The Brooklyn-born Grupposo started out in the......

For many 1010WINS listeners, some sad news: Financial analyst Larry Wachtel who would gave financial advice on 1010WINS for 33 years died on Sunday. He died suddenly of a heart ailment on Sunday. Wachtel grew up in Brooklyn, attended Long Island University and had worked in the finance industry, retiring from Wachovia Securities in 2005. He also retired from daily commentary on 1010WINS in 2005, but remained a guest commentator. The Journal News notes how......

Author Norman Mailer passed away at Mt. Sinai Hospital this morning of renal failure. The deceased writer was the author of more than 30 books, from his debut "The Naked and The Dead," to others including "Armies of the Night," and "The Executioner's Song," for which he won a Pulitzer and the National Book Award, respectively. Mailer was known as much for his out-sized personality as for his writing. The New York Times waxes poetic......

The medical examiner's office said the autopsy of top long distance runner Ryan Shay is inconclusive. Shay collapsed during the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials on Saturday in Central Park and died shortly after. The ME's office said, "We want to take a closer look at the heart tissue," and will probably come to a conclusion in a week. His father had revealed his son was diagnosed with an enlarged heart at age 14, and Joe......

Musical theater star and lounge singer extraordinaire Robert Goulet died yesterday of pulmonary fibrosis while awaiting a lung transplant in an L.A. hospital; he was 73. In the early 60s Goulet skyrocketed to fame through his performance as Lancelot in the smash Broadway hit Camelot. He soon became a seemingly timeless fixture on both the musical theater touring circuit and the Vegas strip – in 1982 he was proclaimed Vegas Entertainer of the Year –......

Carolyn Goodman, a clinical psychologist and civil rights advocate, died at age 91 at her Upper West Side home yesterday. Goodman's son Andrew and two other men, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, were working to help blacks register to vote in the South in 1964 when they were killed by the KKK in Philadelphia, Missipppi. The murders later became the basis for the film Mississippi Burning, and the NY Times' obituary of Goodman explains......

The city of New York is mourning the death of Brooke Astor. The philanthropist, who died yesterday at age 105, had channeled millions from her husband's fortune into a numbers of institutions and organizations - from Carnegie Hall to small community groups across all boroughs. The NY Times obituary makes a very good point about why the $195 million she donated through the Astor Foundation was so important: "Although the foundation was not large......

In May word was spreading that the famed Gotham Book Mart would be shutting its doors as the owner, Andreas Brown, was forced to pay overdue rent. At that time, the entire contents of the shop ("from rare first-edition John Updike novels to the worn-out oriental rug on the third floor") were sold for $400K at a court-mandated auction. The Post called it an "undignified last chapter for the institution - beloved by the likes......

There's a fascinating obituary in the NY Times today for Harvey J. Weinstein (no relation to the movie producer). Weinstein died on May 13 at age 82 in Manhattan, and while he was once the head of the biggest tuxedo manufacturer, he gained a different kind of notoriety when he was kidnapped in 1993 by a man who worked at one of Weinstein's companies as a collar maker. According to the NY Times obituary, Weinstein......

Finally, we have two reasons to discuss Lost. First a warning: stop reading this if the show is still on your DVR, unwatched. In last night's season finale, Jack (in a flash forward/alternate universe/through the looking glass scene) sees an obituary in the newspaper and goes to a funeral home (stating he isn't family or a friend of the deceased). According to Lostpedia, the obituary Jack was reading said: "The body of Jo.. [unreadable] ..antham......

Nothing says "responsibility" like Paris Hilton. This prom season, the socialite's naked "corpse" will be used as an educational tool for teens getting ready for the big dance. The "corpse" was created by Daniel Edwards, who Hilton herself had reportedly commissioned to create a sculpture of her for Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. This probably isn't what she had in mind. The interactive PSA will be a life-sized replica of Hilton (with her privelaged pup Tinkerbell)......

The prolific journalist and author David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash outside of San Francisco. Halberstam, a New Yorker, was traveling in a car that was broadsided while trying to make a left turn. Two other cars were involved in the crash, none of the drivers were seriously injured. The NY Times obituary notes that Halberstam "was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting," as he was on his......

Carlos Lezama, who founded the West Indian Carnival Parade in Brooklyn back in the 1960s, died yesterday at Kings County Hospital at 83. Lezama was born in Trinidad and had participated in the West Indian Carnival in Harlem when he immigrated to the United States. Then Lezama, along with friend Rufus Goring, brought the parade to Brooklyn. The parade has evolved from a five block affair to being the city's biggest parade. The vibrant gathering,......

Broadway star Michael Cerveris (Hedwig, Sweeney Todd, 21 Jump Street) has joined the already exciting cast of King Lear, which opens next month. He’ll be squaring off in the role of Kent across from Kevin Kline’s hotly anticipated Lear. But according to Isaac Butler’s Parabasis, the production’s real star is “genius-level Shakespearean actor” Philip Goodwin in the role of the Fool. But that’s not all! The Public Theater is giving a young upstart named Stephen......

Early this morning in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator whose reign in Iraq led to horrible violence, was hanged for "crimes against humanity", specifically the 1982 killing of 148 men and boys in Dujail. The Daily News compared him to a gangster ("tyrant who ruled Iraq like a Mafia don, slaughtered his fellow citizens and led his country into two disastrous wars with the United States") and the Post noted that his death......

James Brown, the legendary performer who influenced scores of musicians today, died today at age 73. The cause was congestive heart failure. Read what Jon Pareles of the NY Times wrote in an obituary that we believe will be updated throughout the day:Mr. Brown's music was sweaty and complex, disciplined and wild, lusty and socially conscious. Beyond his dozens of hits, Mr. Brown forged an entire musical idiom that is now a foundation of......

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all. Phillyist paid tribute to her this week with a heartfelt letter to her and an obituary. And now, the awkward......

Last week, retired NYPD detective Robert Volpe died at age 63 in Staten Island. He was not any ordinary detective: Volpe specialized in art thefts and frauds, tracking down paintings by Matisse and Raphael, Greek sculptures, and Tiffany glass, all while continuing to paint, teach and lecture about art. The NY Times had a vivid obituary of Volpe's life - it sounds just like a movie:Mr. Volpe essentially created his detective’s job after computer analyses......