Notable deaths last week: Her Hollywood career included iconic movies

• Nick Pappas, who was dubbed "Mr. Trojan" for the 59 years he spent as a football player, coach and administrator at Southern California, has died at age 99.

• Fiery-haired and feisty, Maureen O'Hara could handle anything the world and Hollywood threw at her. Director John Ford punched her in the jaw at a party and John Wayne dragged her through sheep dung - real sheep dung - in "The Quiet Man." In "Miracle on 34th Street" she learned to believe in Santa Claus.

But first and foremost, she always believed in herself.

"I do like to get my own way," she said in 1991. "There have been crushing disappointments. But when that happens, I say, 'Find another hill to climb."'

The Irish-born beauty was 95 when she died Saturday in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho, said Johnny Nicoletti, her longtime manager.

In her heyday, O'Hara was known as the Queen of Technicolor because of the camera's love affair with her vivid hair, bright green eyes and pale complexion.

But she also had talent.

Never nominated for an Oscar (although she received an honorary Academy Award last year), O'Hara nonetheless starred in some of the best-known and beloved movies of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Whether playing a rancher's wife, a pirate queen, or a mother, her characters were strong-willed women - a characteristic she practiced in real life as well and attributed to her Irish roots.

She was the daughter of Welsh miner in the grim Oscar-winning 1941 film "How Green Was My Valley"; the mother who doubts her daughter, Natalie Wood, has really encountered Santa Claus in the 1947 Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street," and a scrappy Irish colleen who is romanced by an American boxer (John Wayne) in 1952's "The Quiet Man."

Wayne, who co-starred with her in five movies, once said: "I've had many friends, and I prefer the company of men, except for Maureen O'Hara; she's a great guy."

"We met through Ford, and we hit it right off," she remarked in 1991. "I adored him, and he loved me. But we were never sweethearts. Never, ever."

She also played the mother of twins, both played by Hayley Mills, who conspire to reunite their divorced parents in the 1961 Disney comedy "The Parent Trap."

She was a retired schoolteacher in her last on-screen role in the 2000 TV movie "The Last Dance."

• Jimmy Roberts, a five-time Stanley Cup champion with the Montreal Canadiens and an original member of the St. Louis Blues, has died at 75.

Playing both defense and forward, Roberts had 126 goals and 194 assists in 1,006 regular-season games with Montreal and St. Louis. The longtime Scotty Bowman protege had 20 goals and 16 assists in 153 playoff games, helping the Canadiens win titles in 1965, 1966, 1973, 1976 and 1977. Roberts was the first player taken by St. Louis in the 1967 expansion draft and helped the Blues reach the Stanley Cup finals in each of their first three seasons. He was a three-time All-Star.

• Dr. Arnold Klein once said, "Put me next to a patient, give me a needle and I'm really happy."

To which the man once known as Hollywood's "Dermatologist to the Stars" might have added: "Make the patient Michael Jackson and I'll be even happier."

Klein, who died in a Rancho Mirage hospital at 70, was a pioneer in the use of Botox and other injectable substances to improve personal appearance. For years, however, he was better known to the public as one of Jackson's closest friends.

It was a relationship that helped cement the doctor's reputation as the go-to guy for stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher and others who wanted work to make them look younger.

Jackson's friendship would ultimately prove a curse for Klein after the King of Pop died of a drug overdose administered by another physician in 2009, and it was revealed that Klein had been regularly injecting Jackson with the powerful painkiller Demerol.

An investigation found no trace of that drug in Jackson's body when he died and Klein was not implicated in the death, but the revelation permanently stained his reputation as one of Los Angeles' most prominent celebrity physicians.

• Thomas Stemberg, a former grocery business executive who founded Staples Inc. and revolutionized the office supplies retail business, died Friday at his home in Massachusetts. He was 66.

Stemberg was a New England grocery executive but left after a dispute with his bosses. He came up with the idea of Staples after driving around the Boston area searching unsuccessfully for printer ribbon on July 4th weekend in 1985 when stores were closed.

Staples, based in Framingham, grew into a chain with $22.5 billion in revenue and 83,000 employees last year. It was among the first big-box stores that applied price pressure on competitors and lured shoppers from downtown stores and shopping malls.

• Marty Ingels, a raspy-voiced comedian, actor and talent agent who was married to singer and actress Shirley Jones for nearly 40 years, has died in Los Angeles. He was 79.

"He often drove me crazy, but there's not a day I won't miss him and love him to my core," the actress said.

Beginning in the 1960s, Ingels appeared in some movies and a number of television show episodes, including "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Phyllis Diller Show" and "Bewitched."

He co-starred with John Astin in the in the 1962-63 TV comedy "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster."

Ingels also did voice work for hundreds of cartoons, commercials and video games. He voiced Pac-Man in the 1982 animated series.

Ingels also ran a talent agency that booked movie stars such as John Wayne and Cary Grant for TV commercials.

In 1974, Ingels met Shirley Jones, co-star of the 1970s TV hit "The Partridge Family," at a party at actor Michael Landon's home.

• Cory Wells, a founding member of the popular 1970s band Three Dog Night and lead singer on such hits as "Never Been to Spain" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," has died at age 74.

Wells experienced acute back pain weeks ago and died suddenly Tuesday in Dunkirk, where he had lived, bandmate Danny Hutton said.

"Vocalists Wells, Hutton and Chuck Negron formed Three Dog Night in 1967, lifting the name from Australian slang for especially cold weather. They added a backing band as they became a top group over the following decade, specializing in covers of songs by Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Paul Williams, among others.

Dubbed the "kings of oversing" by Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, they patented a fervent, gospel-influenced style on such hits as "One," "Eli's Coming" and the chart-topping "Joy to the World."

• Pat Woodell, a former actress and singer who played the brainy sister Bobbie Jo Bradley for two seasons in the 1960s sitcom "Petticoat Junction," has died.

Woodell had guested on TV shows like "Cheyenne" and "77 Sunset Strip" before landing the role on "Petticoat Junction." The series about the Shady Rest Hotel in the farming town of Hooterville aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. Woodell was the brunette of a group of three sisters whose romantic lives were a key part of the series.