Notable deaths last week

Canadian-born actor August Schellenberg, who starred in the “Free Willy” films and appeared in numerous television roles, has died at his Dallas home after a fight with lung cancer, his agent said Friday. He was 77.

Schellenberg played the role of Randolph Johnson, a whale trainer in all three “Free Willy” movies. In 2007, he was nominated for an Emmy as a supporting actor for his role as Chief Sitting Bull in the HBO series, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”

Schellenberg’s big-screen work also included appearing in the 2005 film, “The New World,” alongside movie stars Christian Bale and Colin Farrell.

Jane Harvey, the jazz vocalist who performed with the likes of Desi Arnaz, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, has died. She was 88.

Harvey began her career as a performer at Cafe Society in New York. She went on to record such songs as “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me,” “Close as Pages in a Book” and “Only Another Boy and Girl” with the Goodman orchestra. She also recorded “A Rainy Night in Rio” with Arnaz and “A Hundred Dreams From Now” with Ellington.

Jacques Verges, the French lawyer and enfant terrible known for his defense of the world’s most despised criminals, including the infamous Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan-born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (better known as Carlos the Jackal), died Aug. 15 in Paris. He was reported to be 88.

In a career spanning more than five decades, Verges was one of the most enigmatic and provocative legal personalities in the world. He cultivated an air of mystery by vanishing for most of the 1970s, an absence that to this day— and despite the best efforts of investigative journalists — has never been explained.

When not defending revolutionaries, he was an advocate of choice for the reviled. Verges said he provided legal counsel to Khieu Samphan, the titular head of Cambodia’s widely reviled Khmer Rouge; Serbian leader and accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic and former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz, a top deputy to Saddam Hussein.

“That ’70s Show” actress Lisa Robin Kelly has died at age 43.

Manager Craig Wyckoff says Kelly died Wednesday at a Los Angeles addiction treatment facility she had entered early this week. No official cause of death was disclosed.

Kelly portrayed Laurie Forman, sister of Topher Grace’s lead character Eric, on the Fox series. It concluded in 2006.

Unlike some of her co-stars — Grace, Ashton Kutcher and Laura Prepon — Kelly fell out of the spotlight after appearing on the sitcom until she started making headlines for personal troubles.

Pauline Maier, a historian who was a leading authority on the Revolutionary War era and who argued that Thomas Jefferson’s role in creating the Declaration of Independence had been exaggerated, died Aug. 12 at a hospice in Cambridge, Mass. She was 75.

Her earlier books, “From Resistance to Revolution” (1972) and “The Old Revolutionaries” (1980), described the early movement for independence in the colonies.

Her final book, “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788” (2010), showed how hard it was for the Constitution to win approval in some states: In Massachusetts, the vote was 187 to 168; in Virginia, it was 89 to 79.

Bert Lance, a Georgia banker and ally of former President Jimmy Carter who served as his first budget director before departing amid a high-profile investigation of his banking activities, has died at 82.

“Bert Lance was one of the most competent and dedicated public servants I have ever known,” President Carter said. “As head of the Department of Transportation in Georgia, he was acknowledged by all the other cabinet level officials as their natural leader, and he quickly acquired the same status in Washington as our nation’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget.”

Carter went on to say that Lance’s “never failing sense of humor and ability to make thousands of friends were just two of the sterling qualities that made knowing Bert such a valuable part of our lives.”

Lance, a bear of a man with thick black hair, a rubbery neck and a distinctive drawl, was a self-described “country banker” who had served as state highway commissioner from 1971 to 1973, when Carter was Georgia governor, and also headed the National Bank of Georgia.

He was widely associated with the phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Gia Allemand, who was the girlfriend of NBA Pelicans player Ryan Anderson and appeared on ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “Bachelor Pad,” has died, her publicist said. She was 29.

Allemand was taken Monday night to University Hospital in New Orleans after a suicide attempt, the publicist, Penelope Jean Hayes, said in a written statement.

Allemand, a professional ballet dancer and actress, began modeling when as a baby she did Johnson & Johnson ads and also appeared as a Gerber baby. In addition, she did modeling work for Maxim magazine.

Marich Man Singh Shrestha , the last Nepalese prime minister to serve before protests ushered in the Himalayan country’s first democratic elections in the early 1990s, has died at 71, family members said.

David C. Jones, a retired Air Force general who helped set in motion a far-reaching reorganization of the U.S. military command while serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has died at 92.

Jones served longer than any predecessor on the Joint Chiefs, first as the Air Force chief of staff and then as chairman from 1978 to 1982. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine in October 1979, with the magazine describing him as “cool, meticulous, low-key and dogged.” The article said “Jones typifies the new breed of military managers.”

Michael Winter, an advocate and activist for disability rights who in 1990 abandoned his wheelchair and crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate for the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and who later worked to enforce it as a federal officer, died July 11 at his home in Arlington County, Va. He was 61.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said a friend, Geraldine Adams.

Jack W. Germond, the portly, cantankerous columnist and pundit who covered 10 presidential elections and sparred with colleagues on TV’s “The McLaughlin Group,” has died. He was 85.

He had recently finished his first novel, “A Small Story for Page Three,” about a reporter investigating political intrigue.

He also appeared regularly on TV’s “Inside Washington,” and was a political analyst for NBC and CNN.

Lothar Bisky, who after German reunification helped steer discredited East German communists into the mainstream of national politics, has died at age 71.

Jon Brookes, drummer with British indie rock band The Charlatans, has died. He was 44 and had been treated for brain cancer.

Lead singer Tim Burgess tweeted that the band was “torn apart” by Brookes’ death.

Brookes was a founding member of the band, which drew on funk, rock and psychedelia and came to be associated with the early 1990s “Madchester” scene. The Charlatans’ multiple British hits include “The Only One I Know” and “Can’t Get Out of Bed.”

The Vienna State Opera says Wagnerian tenor Spas Wenkoff has died at age 84.

Johan Friso, the bespectacled Dutch prince who avoided the limelight and gave up his position in line to the throne after getting entangled in a scandal with his bride-to-be, died Monday — 18 months after a skiing accident that left his brain gravely injured. He was 44.

Friso was struck by an avalanche while skiing off-trail in Lech, Austria, Feb. 17, 2012, and was buried until rescuers pulled him from the snow, unconscious, 20 minutes later. He was resuscitated at the scene and flown to a hospital, but remained in coma for months.

Although Friso did not have an image as a risk-taker, the skiing accident — off piste despite avalanche warnings — did not stand totally alone. He was also once stopped while driving 120 mph.

Laszlo Csatary, a former police officer indicted in June by Hungarian authorities for abusing Jews and contributing to their deportation to Nazi death camps during World War II, has died. He was 98.

William P. Clark, who rose from campaign volunteer to one of President Ronald Reagan’s most trusted advisers, has died. He was 81.

Clark began working for Reagan by managing the actor’s 1966 gubernatorial campaign in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. He ascended to various political jobs as Reagan moved from the Golden State to the White House.

Shirley Herz, an indefatigable press agent who became as legendary in the New York theater community as the hundreds of shows and stars she represented, has died at 87.

Eydie Gorme, a popular nightclub and television singer as a solo act and as a team with her husband, Steve Lawrence, has died. She was 84.

Gorme, who also had a huge solo hit in 1963 with “Blame it on the Bossa Nova,” was a successful band singer and nightclub entertainer when she was invited to join the cast of Steve Allen’s local New York television show in 1953.

“Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years,” Lawrence said. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time.”

Jody Payne, a guitarist who toured with Willie Nelson for more than three decades, has died. He was 77.