Notable deaths last week

• Gary Owens, the droll, mellifluous-voiced announcer on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and a familiar part of radio, TV and movies for more than six decades, has died. He was 80.

Owens hosted thousands of radio programs in his long career, appeared in more than a dozen movies and on scores of TV shows, including Lucille Ball and Bob Hope specials. He also voiced hundreds of animated characters, was part of dozens of comedy albums and wrote books.

On "Laugh-In," the 1968-73 sketch show starring Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, Owens was shown on camera in a parody of an old-school announcer, with his hand cupped firmly over his ear. But his voice was always the real thing, rich and authoritative.

Owens had "such a great voice, so smooth. That was his real voice, even if he was ordering in a restaurant," said Tom Kenny, the "SpongeBob SquarePants" voice actor who worked with Owens on cartoons including "Dexter's Laboratory."

"Laugh-In" creator and producer George Schlatter, who knew Owens but said he hired him for the show after hearing his voice boom through a restaurant restroom, called him a "lovely, lovely man."

"He had a whimsical, fey sense of humor and he brought a lot to 'Laugh-In' in the way of thoughts, words and jokes," Schlatter said.

Given Owens' jam-packed resume, was he a workaholic?

"Gary did not work. Gary played," Schlatter said. "He was a very charming, creative, witty guy who had a good time."

Owens, a native of Plankinton, South Dakota, was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in Washington D.C. in 1995 and into the National Television Hall of Fame in 2001.

• Rhonda Glenn, the first female anchor on ESPN who became a USGA historian and tireless promoter of women's golf, died after a long illness. She was 68.

She had been battling cancer.

With an engaging smile and happy disposition, Glenn became the first woman to be a fulltime sportscaster for a national network when she sat behind the desk at SportsCenter in 1981 just two years after the 24-hour sports network was launched.

• Dean Smith was more than simply a basketball coach.

Yes, the retired Hall of Famer left North Carolina as the winningest coach in men's history after capturing two national titles along with the 1976 Olympic gold medal and coaching some of the sport's biggest names, Michael Jordan among them.

Smith died "peacefully" at age 83 at his Chapel Hill home, his family said in a statement released by the school last Sunday.

At UNC, he tutored perhaps the game's greatest player in Jordan - who burst onto the national stage as a freshman by hitting the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA final - and two of basketball's most successful coaches, fellow Hall of Famers Larry Brown and Roy Williams.

In a statement Sunday, Jordan said Smith was "more than a coach - he was a mentor, my teacher, my second father. Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it."

• Media columnist David Carr, who wrote the Media Equation column for The New York Times and penned a memoir about his fight with drug addiction, collapsed at his office and died. He was 58.

Just hours before his death Thursday, he had moderated a "Times Talks" conversation with Edward Snowden, director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald about the documentary "Citizenfour," which chronicles Snowden's leak of National Security Agency documents. Carr, engaged as always, drew them out with pointed questions and wry observations to speak candidly about the film.

The Times' publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., said Carr had "formidable talent" and was "one of the most gifted journalists who has ever worked at The New York Times." He called him "an indispensable guide to modern media."

• Billy Casper, one of professional golf's top players for two decades and winner of three major U.S. tournaments, has died. He was 83.

"I think it is fair to say that Billy was probably underrated by those who didn't play against him," 18-time major tournament champion Jack Nicklaus said. "Those who did compete against him knew how special he was."

Renowned for his steady shot-making and masterful putting game, Casper won the U.S. Open in 1959 and 1966, and one Masters, in 1970. His 51 PGA victories put him seventh on the all-time list of winners of the Professional Golfers' Association of America.

• Kevin Delany, an ABC television journalist who in 1975 arranged and orchestrated the evacuation of 101 Vietnamese from wartime Saigon in the final days before the South Vietnamese capital fell to the North Vietnamese, has died. He was 87.

Delany was also a print journalist in New York early in his career, a Peace Corps officer in Asia and a CBS correspondent in Hong Kong. From 1981 to 1988, he directed ABC's Asian news operations from bases in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

In 1971, he arrived in Vietnam as ABC's Saigon bureau chief and stayed into 1973. He was in Washington in 1974, directing ABC's day-to-day reporting on the congressional inquiry into the Watergate break-in and coverup, the presidential impeachment hearings before the House of Representatives and the resignation of Richard Nixon that August.

Then, in the final months of the war in Southeast Asia, he returned to Saigon, arriving as the South Vietnamese army was in free fall and a victory by the North seemed all but inevitable.

• Bob Simon, a globe-trotting CBS News journalist and "60 Minutes" correspondent, who covered hot spots from Vietnam to Northern Ireland and who spent 40 days in an Iraqi prison during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, died in a car crash in New York City. He was 73.

In his 47 years at CBS, Simon won 27 Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards, according to the network, making him one of the most highly honored correspondents in television history. He began contributing to "60 Minutes" in the 1990s and became a full-time correspondent for the popular CBS Sunday-night magazine program in 2005.

Among his dozens of stories, he interviewed failed suicide bombers in the Middle East, reported on the massacre of thousands of civilians in Bosnia and chronicled determined musicians in Africa. This past Sunday, he interviewed director Ava DuVernay about her Oscar-nominated film, "Selma."

• He couldn't stop fighting the NCAA any more than he could give up chewing towels courtside. Jerry Tarkanian built a basketball dynasty in the desert, but it was his decades-long battle with the NCAA that defined him far more than the wins and losses.

The coach who won a national title at UNLV and made the school synonymous with basketball died Wednesday after several years of health issues. He was 84.

Tarkanian put the run in the Runnin' Rebels, taking them to four Final Fours and winning a national championship in 1990 with one of the most dominant college teams ever. His teams were as flamboyant as the city, with light shows and fireworks for pregame introductions and celebrities jockeying for position on the so-called Gucci Row courtside.

He ended up beating the NCAA, too, collecting a $2.5 million settlement after suing the organization for trying to run him out of college basketball. But he was bitter to the end about the way the NCAA treated him while coaching.

''They've been my tormentors my whole life," Tarkanian said at his retirement news conference in 2002. ''It will never stop."

• Claude Ruel, who coached the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup title in 1969, has died. He was 76.

• Ed Sabol, the NFL Films founder who revolutionized sports broadcasting and reimagined pro football from an up-and-coming league to must-watch theater, has died. He was 98.

Sabol was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011. During his tenure at NFL Films from 1964-1995, the organization won 52 Emmy Awards.

• Retired Navy Lt. Commander Joseph Langdell, the oldest living crew member of the battleship USS Arizona to have survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has died in Northern California at the age of 100.

A tally maintained by the USS Arizona Reunion Association, for which Langdell had served as president, identified him as not only the oldest Arizona survivor, but the last surviving officer from the naval ship that lost 1,177 men - nearly four-fifths of its crew - when it was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941.

• Dave Goldberg always relished the chance to share his journalistic expertise and views with his peers. In turn, reporters walked away wiser, often chuckling from his humor.

Goldberg, one of the nation's top football writers and an award-winning veteran of 41 years at The Associated Press, has died at 73.

• Japanese industrial designer Kenji Ekuan, whose works ranged from a bullet train to the red-capped Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser as familiar as the classic Coca-Cola bottle, has died, his company said. He was 85.

A former monk, Ekuan crafted a tabletop bottle for Kikkoman Corp. in 1961, winning international popularity both for the handy, flask-shaped dispenser and of course for the salty brown condiment flavoring many Asian cuisines.

Other of his renowned works include the Yamaha VMAS motorcycle, the Komachi bullet train connecting Tokyo and northern Japan, the Narita Express airport liner, as well as audio equipment and company logos.

• Los Angeles television news pioneer Stan Chambers, who had a front-row seat to earthquakes, fires and the life of the city since the 1940s, died Friday, according to KTLA-TV, the station where he was a reporter for more than six decades. He was 91.

• A terminally ill woman whose desire to have her same-sex marriage recognized by Indiana before she died helped galvanize efforts to overturn the state's gay marriage ban has lost her battle with cancer.

Niki Quasney died at 38.

• Pilot Fitzhugh "Fitz" Fulton Jr., known as the "Dean of Flight Test" for his involvement in pioneering programs including the space shuttle piggyback flights, has died. He was 89.

• Steve Strange, singer with British band Visage and one of the founders of the 1980s' New Romantic style, has died. He was 55.

Strange's record label said he died Thursday in a hospital in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, of an apparent heart attack.

Visage had its best-known hit in 1980 with electronic pop number "Fade To Grey," but Strange probably had greater influence as co-founder of London's Blitz club. It became the crucible of a blend of danceable pop and outrageous fashion that became known as New Romantic.