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Notable deaths last week

• James Traficant, the colorful Ohio politician whose conviction for taking bribes and kickbacks made him only the second person to be expelled from Congress since the Civil War, has died at 73.

Traficant was seriously injured Tuesday after a vintage tractor flipped over on him as he tried to park it inside a barn on the family farm near Youngstown. He died four days later in a Youngstown hospital, said Dave Betras, chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party.

The Democrat's expulsion from Congress in 2002 came three months after a federal jury in Cleveland convicted him. Prosecutors said he used his office to extract bribes from businesspeople and coerced staffers to work on his farm and his house boat on the Potomac River in Washington. He also was charged with witness tampering, destroying evidence and filing false tax returns. He spent seven years in prison.

Traficant's notoriety was rivaled only by his eccentricity.

He loved to play the buffoon during his 17 years in Congress. He got plenty of notice within the staid, buttoned-down Capitol and airtime on C-SPAN for his messy mop of hair - revealed to be a wig when he went to prison - his typical wardrobe of cowboy boots, denim or polyester suits, and his bombastic speaking style.

His made-for-TV rants on the House floor invariably ended with the signoff "Beam me up," which Traficant borrowed from "Star Trek" to show his disgust or bemusement at whatever he found particularly outrageous.

Traficant was born May 8, 1941, in Youngstown and was a quarterback for the University of Pittsburgh, where he played with future NFL coaches Mike Ditka and Marty Schottenheimer.

• Raul Alvarez Garin, a leader in the 1968 student uprising that culminated in the massacre of protesters in Mexico City, has died at age 73.

Alvarez Garin died Friday in the capital after a yearlong battle with cancer, according to a Facebook statement posted by the Committee of the '68 Pro Democratic Liberties. He founded the group to demand punishment for those responsible for the massacre.

Alvarez Garin, a university professor, was one of the most recognized leaders of Mexico's leftist student movement that was deflated when soldiers opened fire on protesters at Tlatelolco Plaza on Oct. 2, 1968. An unknown number of people were killed.

• When an earnest but sometimes inept talk-show host took to public-access television in 1978 with a celebrity name-dropping show, it seemed incongruous that Skip E. Lowe would somehow outlast every other TV host from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno.

For one thing, his show aired on the kind of cable channels that carry school board meetings. For another, many of his guests were faded stars people weren't sure were still alive.

But the former child actor, who died at age 85 in Los Angeles, did just that.

Lowe filmed "Skip E. Lowe Looks at Hollywood" for 36 years, broadcasting it on cable TV outlets in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. He filmed the last one just two weeks ago.

"He loved show business, and the fact that the show was public access, that didn't bother him at all. He was on television," his agent, Alan Eichler, said

The result: Lowe assembled a cult following of fans in the cities where his show aired, including some of the entertainers he couldn't get on camera.

Martin Short acknowledged he based his unctuous, often bumbling Jiminy Glick character partly on Lowe, and Harry Shearer profiled Lowe for a 1998 New York Times Magazine story headlined, "Ineptness Has Its Virtues."

As the years passed, Lowe did manage to corral a few big names, even if some had dropped off the Hollywood A List by the time they did the show. Among them: Milton Berle, Marlon Brando, Shelley Winters and Mickey Rooney. Others included 1940s child star Gloria Jean; Sylvester Stallone's mother; Brando's son; and countless character actors.

• A South Florida dermatologist credited with helping develop the first baldness remedy recognized by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has died. He was 80.

Dr. Guinter Kahn's name was added to the patent for minoxidil in 1986 after a 15-year legal struggle with Upjohn Co. Minoxidil is the active ingredient in Rogaine.

Upjohn originally synthesized minoxidil to treat high blood pressure in the early 1960s. When Dr. Charles Chidsey - one of the company's consultants working at the University of Colorado's medical school - noticed the drug stimulated hair growth, Chidsey went to Kahn and his medical assistant, Dr. Paul Grant. Kahn was running the school's dermatology department at the time.

• Conductor Christopher Hogwood, who pioneered the performance of music by 18th-Century composers such as Bach and Handel on historically authentic instruments, has died at 73.

The conductor's website said he died at home in Cambridge, England following an illness lasting several months. His death was confirmed by the Academy of Ancient Music, the orchestra he founded in 1973 and with which he had many of his greatest successes.

• Deborah, the dowager duchess of Devonshire, the last of the witty, unconventional Mitford sisters, has died at 94.

Brought up in Oxfordshire, England, Deborah was the youngest of the six sisters, including the novelist and historian Nancy Mitford, and writer and social activist Jessica Mitford. Two other sisters were infamous for their right-wing politics. Unity was a friend of Adolf Hitler, and Diana was the second wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists.

Unmoved by her sisters' associations, Deborah told the Daily Telegraph in 2012 that Hitler made little impression on her when she joined her mother and Unity for tea with the Nazi leader in 1937.

"Well, I've never been very interested in politics, you see," she told the newspaper. "And the truth is that I didn't give it much thought. If you sat in a room with Churchill you were aware of this tremendous charisma. Kennedy had it, too. But Hitler didn't - not to me anyway."

• George Sluizer, the Dutch filmmaker who directed River Phoenix's last movie, "Dark Blood," has died at age 82.

In a career that spanned five decades, Sluizer's most celebrated work was probably the 1988 thriller "Spoorloos," or "The Vanishing," about a man's quest to find out what happened to his girlfriend after she disappeared without a trace during a stop at a gas station.

Sluizer said Stanley Kubrick had told him the film was the most frightening he had ever seen, and the two met to discuss editing techniques.

Sluizer directed a 1992 American remake of "The Vanishing" starring Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and Kiefer Sutherland, but it was less successful, in part because the dark ending of the original was lightened.

"Dark Blood" was only two-thirds complete in 1993 when Phoenix, a rising Hollywood star, died of a drug-induced heart attack at aged 23 in front of the Viper Club in Los Angeles.

The film was left untouched for years, but Sluizer saved it from destruction in 1998.

• John Toner, the retired athletic director credited with helping build the University of Connecticut into a college athletics power and hiring its best-known coaches, has died. He was 91.

In the mid-1980s, he hired women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma and men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun, Hall of Famers who have won a combined 12 NCAA National Championships at UConn.

• Prolific writer J. California Cooper, who was writing plays until Alice Walker suggested she switch to short stories and novels, because they were an easier path to a paycheck, has died at age 82.

She lived most of her life in northern California and wrote more than a dozen plays and had about a dozen books published after switching to prose fiction.

Reviewing her novel "Family" in The New York Times in 1990, Roy Hoffman called it "the sort of book that ought to be read out loud."

"Never mind that the narrator, Clora, is a ghost," Hoffman wrote. "In its strong rhythms and colloquial expressions, this book is a living woman's monologue. At times, Clora even seems to lean toward us, grabbing at our lapels."

• Rebecca Jane "Becky" Malkovich, a longtime southern Illinois journalist whose newspapering family includes actor John Malkovich, has died.

Malkovich was 53 when she died at St. Louis' Barnes-Jewish Hospital, five days after suffering a heart attack at her home in Benton, according to The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan, for which she had reported for nearly the past 11 years.

• Eric "The Actor" Lynch, whose fear of werewolves, love of professional wrestling and angry, often foul-mouthed rants endeared him to fans of Howard Stern's radio show for more than a decade, has died at age 39.

Lynch, who stood just 3 feet tall and used a wheelchair to get around, had suffered for years from numerous height-related health problems.

He said doctors had told his parents he likely wouldn't live past the age of 14.

"I loved Eric. I truly loved him," Stern said on his radio show. "What I loved about him was here was this guy afflicted with every ... thing on the planet, you couldn't have gotten worse luck dealt to you, and Eric didn't view it that way."

Lynch, a huge "American Idol" fan, first called Stern 12 years ago to complain angrily that the shock jock had ridiculed contestant Kelly Clarkson's appearance.

As the calls persisted, many of them foul-mouthed, insulting rants directed at Stern himself, an unlikely friendship blossomed between the two.

Stern, meanwhile, gave as good as he got, attempting to persuade Lynch to be attached to balloons so he would hover over his recording studio. Another time, he took part in a prank to convince Lynch that werewolves really did exist in New Mexico, where Stern was sending him for a small part in a TV show.

Like other members of Stern's so-called Wack Pack of oddball callers and in-studio guests, Lynch landed several TV roles over the years. His credits included "In Plain Sight," "Fringe" and "American Dream," and he was a guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

• Israeli secret service agent Mike Harari, who played a major role in planning Mossad's revenge attacks against Palestinian militants implicated in the 1972 Munich massacre of the country's Olympics team, has died. He was 87.

Harari was also involved in planning Israel's dramatic rescue of hostages held by militants in Entebbe, Uganda in 1976.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement Monday, calling Harari "one of the great warriors for Israel's security."

The Munich revenge attacks were collectively known as "Operation Wrath of God." For nearly a year, Mossad agents targeted Palestinian militants throughout Europe, frequently shooting their victims from close range.

One was a Moroccan waiter gunned down in the Norwegian town of Lillehammer in a case of mistaken identity.

Norwegian prosecutors indicted Harari for that killing in 1998.

He was depicted by Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film "Munich," a controversial account of the Operation Wrath of God affair.

• Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original "Cape Fear" and the first woman president in "Kisses for My President," has died at 84.

A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums and played leading roles in films, stage musicals and TV dramas. She also hosted her own variety series, was a popular game show panelist, and founded a thriving beauty products company that bore her name.

Deborah Mitford, the Dowager of Duchess of Devonshire in London. Associated Press/June 1, 1941
British conductor Christopher Hogwood in Cologne, Germany. Associated Press/May 14, 2004
Eric Lynch in Beverly Hills, Calif. Associated Press/January 2013
Skip E. Lowe. Lowe, the comic, raconteur and perennial TV host whose weekly public access cable program has been airing in Los Angeles, New York and other major markets for more than 35 years. Associated Press/Provided by publicist Alan Eichler
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