Notable deaths last week

• Stan Freberg, the spirited comic genius who lampooned American history in his landmark recordings "The United States of America" and was hailed as the father of the funny commercial, has died at 88.

His face might not have been as recognizable as other humorists', but Freberg's influence was arguably greater, thanks to a huge body of work assembled over 70 years that encompassed radio, television, comedy albums, advertising jingles and nightclub performances.

In recent years he was a panelist at the Comic Con pop-culture convention, and in 2011 he released a new comedy recording, "Songs in the Key of Freberg."

Over the years, he provided the voices for numerous cartoon characters for such films as "Lady and the Tramp," "Alice in Wonderland" and "Stuart Little." He did them for popular TV programs as well, including "The Bugs Bunny Show," "Ren & Stimpy" and "Freakazoid." He also occasionally appeared in front of the camera, including a recurring role on the 1990s sitcom "Roseanne."

But he had his greatest impact through comic records and syndicated radio shows that began in the 1950s and continued into recent years.

His masterpiece was the pioneering concept album "Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America," a work produced in two volumes that sounded seamless although they were recorded 35 years apart.

In recent years, Freberg was working on Vol. III. He told the AP one of the bits he finished featured Gen. Douglas MacArthur, while retreating from the Philippines during World War II, trying out the line, "See ya later, alligator" before settling on "I Shall Return."

For many of his TV commercials, Freberg persuaded celebrities to lampoon themselves.

In one for prunes, he had science-fiction author Ray Bradbury come on camera to deny he had ever predicted in his futuristic novels that one day everyone would be eating the product Freberg was pitching.

In another, he had television's original Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore, show up in costume to complain that a Freberg commercial for pizza rolls was using his theme song, "The William Tell Overture."

"Man, I had a terrible time talking Clayton Moore into doing that," he recalled.

Freberg eventually was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Animation Hall of Fame.

• Geoffrey Lewis, a prolific television actor and frequent co-star of Clint Eastwood, has died at the age of 79.

The veteran character actor's credits alongside Eastwood include "High Plains Drifter," "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," "Every Which Way But Loose," and its sequel, and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," among others.

He received a Golden Globe nomination for the television series "Flo," and also appeared in shows that include "Murder She Wrote," "The A-Team," and "Mission: Impossible."

Juliette Lewis posted a photo of her and her father to her Instagram account, writing that she is forever his daughter and that he will never be gone.

• Lauren Hill's teammates and coaches are remembering the 19-year-old college basketball player with her own inspiring words: "Never give up."

An example she lived by as she fought a brain tumor and rallied those around her to help her achieve her dream of playing in a game.

Several hundred students gathered on the grassy quad at Mount St. Joseph on Friday, a few hours after she died at a local hospital.

• Raul Hector Castro, Arizona's only Hispanic governor and an American ambassador to three countries, died Friday. He was 98.

• Former Florida coach and athletic director Ray Graves, who helped the Gators reach national prominence in the 1960s, has died at 96.

• Within hours of his death on Friday, former Australia cricket captain and pioneering television commentator Richie Benaud was described as a "national treasure" and praised by his peers, current players and the country's prime minister.

Benaud, 84, died overnight at a Sydney hospice, surrounded by his wife, Daphne, and other family members. He had been fighting skin cancer since late last year.

• Prolific character actor James Best, best known for playing the giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on "The Dukes of Hazzard," has died. He was 88.

Best starred on the television series that ran from 1979 to 1985. He was the lawman futilely chasing the Duke boys, often in the company of his droopy-faced basset hound Flash. Best employed a battery of catch phrases in the role, as well as memorable laugh that was comically villainous.

"I acted the part as good as I could," Best told The Charlotte Observer in a 2009 interview. "Rosco, let's face it, was a charmer. It was a fun thing."

During a wide-ranging career of several decades, he also acted in movies including "The Caine Mutiny" and "Rolling Thunder," and he appeared on television shows including "Gunsmoke" and "The Andy Griffith Show."

• Dollard St. Laurent, a defenseman who won five Stanley Cups and played on the powerhouse Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s, has died. He was 85.

St. Laurent played eight seasons for Montreal, winning Stanley Cups in 1953, 1956, 1957 and 1958. He was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in 1958 for cash and future considerations and won a title with them in 1961.

He had 29 goals and 133 assists in 652 games over 12 NHL seasons. He had two goals and 22 assists in 92 playoff games.

He was steadying influence for a rising Blackhawks team that ended a 23-year Stanley Cup drought. After the 1961-62 season, St. Laurent was sent to the Quebec Aces of the American Hockey League, where he broke a leg and then retired at the end of the season.

• Ivan Doig, an award-winning author whose books set in his native Montana made him one of the most respected writers of the American West, has died. He was 75.

Doig was born in 1939 in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. The former ranch hand earned bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington.

He wrote 16 books, including the so-called McCaskill trilogy, three novels about a fictional Montana family covering the first 100 years of state history. His 1979 memoir, "This House of Sky," was a finalist for the National Book Award.

In 2007, Doig won the Wallace Stegner Award, which recognizes someone who has "made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West." He was also the recipient of the Western Literature Association's lifetime Distinguished Achievement award.

His publisher said that two of Doig's later works, "The Bartenders Tale," released in 2012, and the yet-to-be published "Last Bus to Wisdom," were inspired by experiences from Doig's youth.

• Richard Dysart, a veteran stage and screen actor who played senior partner Leland McKenzie in the long-running TV courtroom drama "L.A. Law," has died after a long illness. He was 86.

He created the Broadway role of the Coach in "That Championship Season," for which he won a Drama Desk Award in 1972, and his many film appearances included Hal Ashby's "Being There," Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider" and John Carpenter's "The Thing."

But his most memorable role was likely that of head man in the firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak in NBC's 1986-1994 series. It was produced by Steven Bochco, who, having scored a hit with the police series "Hill Street Blues," was casting another multi-character series that would portray the life in a toney Los Angeles law office.

The role as Leland McKenzie was largely an official one, patiently advising his lawyers about their cases and their romances. But he had one experience during the 1988 season that was out of character: a romance with a beautiful law student 30 years McKenzie's junior. Dysart was delighted to depict this May-December fling.

"L.A. Law," for which Dysart won an Emmy, was the culmination of his long career.

• Marc Marotta, a former Marquette basketball star who became board chairman of the Milwaukee Bucks arena, has died. He was 52.

The Milwaukee County medical examiner says an autopsy showed Marotta died Wednesday of a brain aneurysm.

• Art Powell, who led the AFL in yards receiving in back-to-back years for the New York Titans and Oakland Raiders, has died. He was 78.

The Raiders said in a statement that Powell's "strong convictions and athletic prowess helped shape the pro football landscape of the 1960s."

Powell played 10 years in the NFL and AFL for the Eagles, Titans, Raiders, Bills and Vikings. He led the AFL with 1,130 yards receiving in 1962 for the Titans before joining the Raiders the following season.

He had his best success in Oakland, leading the AFL with 1,301 yards and 16 touchdown catches in 1963 in Al Davis' first year as coach. Powell had 1,361 yards receiving the following season.

• Stanley I. Kutler, a noted Watergate scholar who became part of the history he studied by filing a lawsuit that spurred the release, beginning in the 1990s, of hundreds of hours of President Richard Nixon's secretly recorded conversations, has died at a hospice in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. He was 80.

Kutler was a longtime professor at the University of Wisconsin and began teaching history more than a decade before Richard Nixon became, in 1974, the first U.S. president to resign his office.

Kutler would later dedicate himself to the task, also pursued by journalists and other academics, of fully illuminating the events collectively called the Watergate scandal. His book "The Wars of Watergate" (1990) was described by journalist and author Anthony Lukas as "the first major work by a professional historian to focus on the scandal and the investigations that felled the Nixon Presidency."

• Dick Wood, the first starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, has died at the age of 79.

He played for the expansion Dolphins in 1966, his final season in the AFL, and threw four touchdown passes and 14 interceptions. When with the Jets, he became the first player to throw a touchdown pass at Shea Stadium.

• William J. Morey Jr., a thoroughbred trainer who won over 1,300 races mostly on the Northern California circuit during his 45-year career, died Friday. He was 74.

• Natalia Bobrova, the first female gymnast to win a world championship medal for Russia, has died at the age of 36.

Bobrova's bronze medal in the floor exercise in Birmingham, England, in 1993, came in Russia's first world championships under its own flag after the Soviet Union's collapse broke up a world-beating team.

Bobrova, who was known as Natalia Kudryavtseva after marriage, died after a lengthy battle with cancer, Russian gymnastics federation spokesperson Elena Mikhailova said.

• Don Looney, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles and also starred at TCU, has died. He was 98.

Looney was the last known survivor of the 1938 TCU team that won the national championship. He then played receiver for the Eagles in 1940, leading the league with 58 receptions and 707 yards.

• Tom Towles, the mustached character actor who popped up in several Rob Zombie's movies, has died. He was 71.

Towles' spokeswoman Tammy Dupal said in a statement Monday that the actor who appeared in "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects" died in Pinellas, Florida, from complications following a stroke.

His other film credits included Zombie's 2007 remake of "Halloween," "Grindhouse," "The Pit and the Pendulum" and director Michael Mann's "Miami Vice."

Towles TV credits included "Seinfeld," "NYPD Blue," "L.A. Law," "ER," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Firefly."

• Julie Wilson, a musical theater actress and cabaret star who earned a Tony Award nomination and was cheered for her ability to harness the songs of Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter, has died. She was 90.

Wilson's most famous stage role was the 1988 Peter Allen musical "Legs Diamond," for which she earned a Tony Award nomination. Her other Broadway credits include "Park" in 1970, "The Girl in the Freudian Slip" in 1967 and was a replacement for the role of Babe Williams in the original run of "The Pajama Game."

• The Rev. Gardner Taylor, a Baptist minister whose social conscience and gift for oratory made him one of the most influential African-American preachers during the civil rights movement and beyond, has died in Durham, North Carolina. He was 96.

Known by the end of his life as the dean of African-American preachers, Taylor was endowed with a voice whose power was equated to that of a pipe organ. His sermons touched on human struggle - a theme that was both timeless and immediately relevant for participants in the civil rights movement.

Taylor's style was so compelling, Dyson said in an interview, that other preachers "traded the tapes and subsequently the CDs of his latest sermons like kids trade baseball cards." Taylor was credited with inspiring generations of ministers, among them the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Pioneering dermatologist Dr. Fredric Brandt, an early proponent of Botox who was also an author, radio host and frequent television talk show guest, has died. He was 65.

Miami police spokeswoman Frederica Burden said Monday officers found Brandt's body at his home in the Coconut Grove section of Miami about 9:15 a.m. Sunday after a friend contacted them. Burden said Brandt apparently hanged himself and that foul play is not suspected.

• Lon Simmons, a Hall of Fame broadcaster whose career spanned five decades calling San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics and 49ers games, has died at 91.

Over three stints with the Giants, Simmons considered one of his greatest thrills getting to call Mays' 600th home run. His signature phrase on the longball became, "Tell it goodbye!"

"If they had a Nobel Prize for baseball, Willie would have won it," Simmons said during Mays' 80th birthday festivities in May 2011.

• Billy DeLury, a Los Angeles Dodgers employee for nearly 65 years, dating to the team's roots in his hometown of Brooklyn, has died. He was 81.

• The Philadelphia Daily News reports Stan Hochman has died at 86.

Hochman began his 55-year career at the tabloid covering the Phillies. After six seasons, he was promoted to columnist.