Eric Dane, the actor best known for his role as Dr. Mark Sloan on the hit medical series “Grey’s Anatomy,” has died at the age of 53, his family announced Thursday.
In April 2025, Dane announced he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
“With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS,” his family said in a statement provided to CBS News. “He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world.”
“Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight,” his family continued. “He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he’s received. The family has asked for privacy as they navigate this impossible time.”
Actor Eric Dane is photographed at the St. Regis in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2025.
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Along with his long run on “Grey’s Anatomy,” Dane was a prolific actor with dozens of credits dating back to the early 1990s, including roles in television shows including “Euphoria” and “Charmed,” and films such as 2006’s “X-Men: Last Stand” and 2010’s “Burlesque.”
He is survived by his wife, actress Rebecca Gayheart, and their two daughters.
ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — named after the New York Yankees player — impacts the nervous system and affects the brain and spinal cord, according to the Mayo Clinic. It worsens over time, and its cause is unknown. About 1 in 300 Americans are affected by ALS, the ALS Association told CBS News in 2023. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the life expectancy following an ALS diagnosis is three to five years.
At the time of his ALS announcement last year, Dane said he planned to continue acting, and in a virtual panel in December, he said it was “imperative that I share my journey with as many people as I can because I don’t feel like my life is about me anymore.”
Dane was born on Nov. 9, 1972, and raised in California. His father, a Navy man, died of a gunshot wound when he was 7. After high school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, landing guest roles on shows like “Saved by the Bell,” “Married…With Children” and “Charmed,” and one season of the short-lived medical drama “Gideon’s Crossing.”
His big break arrived in the mid-2000s, when he was cast as Dr. Mark Sloan, aka McSteamy, on the ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” a role he would play from 2006 until 2012 and reprise in 2021.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Eric Dane,” ABC and 20th Television, which produces “Grey’s Anatomy,” said in a statement to CBS News. “His remarkable talent and unforgettable presence on “Grey’s Anatomy” left a lasting impact on audiences around the world, and his courage and grace during his battle with ALS inspired so many. Our hearts are with his family, friends, and colleagues, as well as the many fans whose lives were touched by his work.”
In 2019, he did a complete 180 and became Cal Jacobs, a troubled married man, in HBO’s provocative drama “Euphoria,” a role he continued in up until his death.
“We are deeply saddened by the news of Eric Dane’s passing,” an HBO spokesperson told CBS News in a statement. “He was incredibly talented and HBO was fortunate to have worked with him on three seasons of Euphoria. Our thoughts are with his loved ones during this difficult time.”
Sam Levinson, creator of “Euphoria,” said in a statement he was “heartbroken by the loss of our dear friend Eric.”
“Working with him was an honor. Being his friend was a gift,” Levinson said. “Eric’s family is in our prayers. May his memory be for a blessing.”
Dane also starred as Tom Chandler, the captain of a U.S. Navy destroyer at sea after a global catastrophe wiped out most of the world’s population, in the TNT drama “The Last Ship.” In 2017, production was halted as Dane battled depression.
Dane became an advocate for ALS awareness, speaking at a news conference in Washington on health insurance prior authorization.
“Some of you may know me from TV shows, such as ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ which I play a doctor. But I am here today to speak briefly as a patient battling ALS,” he said in June 2025. In September of that year, the ALS Network named Dane the recipient of their advocate of the year award, recognizing his commitment to raising awareness and support for people living with ALS.
The ALS Association said in a statement on social media that, “In his final months, (Dane) didn’t just fight for himself — he fought for everyone living with ALS and their loved ones. He advocated for ALS research funding, raised awareness, and never stopped. His voice will carry on. Our hearts go out to his family and friends.”
The nonprofit group I Am ALS, which worked with Dane, said in its own statement late Thursday that Dane “brought humility, humor, and visibility to ALS and reminded the world that progress is possible when we refuse to remain silent. Eric was more than a supporter of our mission—he was part of our family.”
A memoir by Dane is scheduled to be published later this year: “Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments.”
“I want to capture the moments that shaped me — the beautiful days, the hard ones, the ones I never took for granted — so that if nothing else, people who read it will remember what it means to live with heart,” Dane said in a statement around the book’s announcement. “If sharing this helps someone find meaning in their own days, then my story is worth telling.”
Actor Eric Dane announced in April of 2025 that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. “I’m fighting as much as I can,” he said a few months later, shortly after finishing work on the third season of Euphoria, on which he played Cal Jacobs, the father to Jacob Elordi‘s Nate Jacobs. But ALS is an unrelenting and merciless degenerative disease, for which there is no cure. And on February 19, the 53-year-old actor died, after final days spent with friends and family.
“With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS,” Dane’s family has said via a statement shared with media. “He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world. Throughout his journey with ALS, Eric became a passionate advocate for awareness and research, determined to make a difference for others facing the same fight.”
Dane was born on November 9, 1972, in San Francisco, California. He fell in love with acting as a youth, after he was cast in a high school production of All My Sons. He moved to Los Angeles after graduation to seek his fortune as an actor, but it took a while for Hollywood to catch on to his easy grin and athletic charm. Eventually, he started winning small roles in the TV shows of the day: Married… with Children, Saved by the Bell, and Roseanne.
His big break was a recurring role in short-lived Y2K medical drama Gideon’s Crossing, followed soon thereafter by a central role in the later seasons of supernatural series Charmed. That combination of roles cemented Dane as the go-to for a certain type of sturdy and appealing television role, but it was his role as Dr. Mark Sloan beginning in the second season of Grey’s Anatomy that made Dane a household name—that, as well as his 2004 marriage to actor Rebecca Gayheart. Dane left the show six years later, in 2012, but reruns and syndication kept his lab-coated figure in the public eye long after that.
While he worked consistently in the years since, it was his role on Euphoria that opened a new chapter in Dane’s career. As closeted Cal Jacobs, the seemingly perfect family man living a double life, Dane received some of the best reviews of his career. As Variety‘s Daniel D’Addariowrote in 2022, “Dane is simply spectacular” in the role, citing a Jacobs-centered episode as “a high-water mark for an exceptional series.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to be Cal, but I know what it’s like to live a double life,” Dane told Vanity Fair in 2022. “I’ve had my own experience with drug and alcohol abuse. That’s a double life.
Jesse Jackson’s life was defined by *** relentless fight for justice and equality. I was born in Greenville, South Carolina, uh, in rampant radical racial segregation. Had to be taught to go to the back of the bus or be arrested. In 1965, he began working for Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. I learned so much from him, such *** great source of inspiration. Both men were in Memphis in April 1968 to support striking sanitation workers. King and other civil rights leaders were staying at the Lorraine Motel. He said, Jesse, you know, you don’t even have on *** shirt and tie. You don’t even have on *** tie. We’re going to dinner. I said, Doc, you know it does not require *** tie. Just an appetite and we laughed. I said, Doc, and the bullet hit. With King gone, his movement was adrift. Years later, Jackson formed Operation Push, pressuring businesses to open up to black workers and customers and adding more focus on black responsibility, championed in the 1972 concert Watt Stacks. Watts. The Reverend set his sights on the White House in 1984. 1st thought of as *** marginal candidate, Jackson finished third in the primary race with 18% of the vote. He ran again in 1988, doubling his vote count and finishing in 2nd in the Democratic race. At the time, it was the farthest any black candidate had gone in *** presidential contest. But 20 years later when President Barack ran, we were laying the groundwork for that season. In 2017, Jackson had *** new battle to fight, Parkinson’s disease, but it did. It stop him. Late in life, he was still fighting. He was arrested in Washington while demonstrating for voting rights. His silent presence at the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers prompted defense lawyers to ask that he leave the courtroom. Jackson stayed from the Jim Crow South through the turbulent 60s and into the Black Lives Matter movement. Jesse Jackson was *** constant, unyielding voice for justice.
Children of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson honor his legacy as memorial services set for next week
From jokes about his well-known stubbornness to tears grieving the loss of a parent, the adult children of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. gave an emotional tribute Wednesday honoring the legacy of the late civil rights icon, a day after his death.Jackson died Tuesday at his home in Chicago after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and speak. Standing on the steps outside his longtime Chicago home, five of his children, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, remembered him not only for his decades-long work in civil rights but also for his role as spiritual leader and father.“Our father is a man who dedicated his life to public service to gain, protect and defend civil rights and human rights to make our nation better, to make the world more just, our people better neighbors with each other,” said his youngest son, Yusef Jackson, fighting back tears at times.Memorial services were set for next week, with two days of him lying in repose at the Chicago headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organization he founded. A public memorial dubbed “The People’s Celebration” was planned for Feb. 27 at the House of Hope, a South Side church with a 10,000-person arena. Homegoing services were set for the following day at Rainbow PUSH, according to the organization.Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., joining the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was killed.Remembrances have poured in worldwide for Jackson, including flowers left outside the home where large portraits of a smiling Jackson had been placed. But his children said he was a family man first.“Our father took fatherhood very seriously,” his eldest child, Santita Jackson, said. “It was his charge to keep.”His children’s reflections were poetic in the style of the late civil rights icon — filled with prayer, tears and a few chuckles, including about disagreements that occur when growing up in a large, lively family.His eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., a former congressman, said his father’s funeral services would welcome all, “Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative, right wing, left wing — because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American.”The family asked only that those attending be respectful.“If his life becomes a turning point in our national political discourse, amen,” he said. “His last breath is not his last breath.”
CHICAGO —
From jokes about his well-known stubbornness to tears grieving the loss of a parent, the adult children of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. gave an emotional tribute Wednesday honoring the legacy of the late civil rights icon, a day after his death.
Jackson died Tuesday at his home in Chicago after battling a rare neurological disorder that affected his ability to move and speak. Standing on the steps outside his longtime Chicago home, five of his children, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, remembered him not only for his decades-long work in civil rights but also for his role as spiritual leader and father.
“Our father is a man who dedicated his life to public service to gain, protect and defend civil rights and human rights to make our nation better, to make the world more just, our people better neighbors with each other,” said his youngest son, Yusef Jackson, fighting back tears at times.
Memorial services were set for next week, with two days of him lying in repose at the Chicago headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the organization he founded. A public memorial dubbed “The People’s Celebration” was planned for Feb. 27 at the House of Hope, a South Side church with a 10,000-person arena. Homegoing services were set for the following day at Rainbow PUSH, according to the organization.
Jackson rose to prominence six decades ago as a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., joining the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King later dispatched Jackson to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.
Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was killed.
Remembrances have poured in worldwide for Jackson, including flowers left outside the home where large portraits of a smiling Jackson had been placed. But his children said he was a family man first.
“Our father took fatherhood very seriously,” his eldest child, Santita Jackson, said. “It was his charge to keep.”
His children’s reflections were poetic in the style of the late civil rights icon — filled with prayer, tears and a few chuckles, including about disagreements that occur when growing up in a large, lively family.
Scott Olson
The children of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr., Jesse Jackson Jr., Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), Sanita Jackson, Ashley Jackson, and Yusef Jackson speak about their father outside their parents’ home on February 18, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. Jesse Jackson Sr. died early yesterday morning. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
His eldest son, Jesse Jackson Jr., a former congressman, said his father’s funeral services would welcome all, “Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative, right wing, left wing — because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American.”
The family asked only that those attending be respectful.
“If his life becomes a turning point in our national political discourse, amen,” he said. “His last breath is not his last breath.”
When I think of Frankenstein, I think of Tom Noonan. His portrayal of the monster in one of my favorite movies, 1987 cult classic The Monster Squad, shaped everything I grew up knowing about the character. Noonan’s Frankenstein monster was kind; he made friends, and he could very easily rip you limb from limb. He also called things “bogus,” which is a great way to describe the news this week that Noonan has passed away at the age of 74. “Bogus,” indeed.
Besides playing the famous monster, Noonan had an incredible career working with some of the industry’s best. Born in 1951, Noonan didn’t start acting in films until his late twenties. He did a bunch of small roles before landing the leading role of Francis Dollarhyde, aka the Tooth Fairy, in Michael Mann’s 1981 film, Manhunter. It was the first Hannibal Lecter movie, and Noonan played the role of the killer that Hannibal helped the FBI find. He was terrifying, and it set the stage for his career to come.
Noonan found his best-known work playing villains like that. He’s the villainous Cain in RoboCop 2, he’s the unstoppable “Ripper” opposite Arnold Schwarzeneggerin Last Action Hero, and he worked with Mann again in Heat as a criminal named Kelso. Later, he worked with Oscar-winning Charlie Kaufman on some of the filmmaker’s weirder works: Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa. Then, his TV work was arguably even more impressive, filled with shows like The X-Files, 12 Monkeys, The Leftovers, Damages, Hell on Wheels, and so much more.
It was a storied career that lasted almost four decades. But, with his work in The Monster Squad, Noonan went against his typecast, bringing a specific innocence to the character that really got to its core. On Facebook, the film’s director, Fred Dekker, wrote about the late star and how he got him to appear in a movie about kids fighting monsters. “I knew the first thing a serious actor would want to know was that my vision for Frankenstein was serious and not ‘campy,’” Dekker recalled. “Luckily, this was the case. ‘He isn’t a monster,’ I argued, ‘but rather, a pitiable creature born from perverted science and cadavers—a sad, freakish orphan whose only goal is to live a normal life.’”
There’s more to that story (read it here), but Tom Noonan himself lived anything but a normal life. He created. He entertained. And he inspired. For me personally, he inspired a love of monsters that still lives to this day. He showed how even in the scariest places, love and compassion can be found. He’ll be truly missed.
His work depended on access. He filmed in hospital rooms where patients and families faced incommensurable agonies with the aid of the medical staff (“Near Death”); he filmed in administrative offices (“At Berkeley,” “Ex Libris”), in businesses (“The Store,” “Model”), in government buildings (“City Hall”). Yet people tended to speak uninhibitedly in his presence. He told me that they simply forgot he was filming there. It helps that Wiseman was slight of stature and calm of manner. It’s hard to imagine him passing unnoticed if he’d had the height and the bearing of Charlton Heston.
It’s also hard to imagine Wiseman having started a similar career a decade sooner, because his films depended, to a significant extent, on a new technology that had begun to reveal its power—a system that allowed a lightweight tape recorder and a relatively lightweight movie camera to synch up, with no cable connecting them. Such equipment proved its artistic importance in 1960, with Robert Drew’s “Primary” and, in France, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s “Chronicle of a Summer”—the early generation of films in the format called cinéma vérité, or direct cinema. Wiseman said he was inspired by Drew’s 1961 documentary “Mooney vs. Fowle,” a chronicle of a high-school-football championship game. When Wiseman got started, it was in a new field that, although burgeoning, seemed both wide open and unformed. He took hold of a still-young format and, guided from the start by an unyielding sense of principle, made a body of work so original, idea rich, and unified that it seems foreordained—a historic fusion of investigation and the inner life.
Wiseman brought intellectual form to nonfiction through the single word “institutions,” a concept that carried the philosophical heft of the contemporaneous work of Michel Foucault; Wiseman similarly probed the intersections of systems of knowledge and power, and drew attention to the physical authority that ultimately backs up the abstract determinations of administrative rules. Where Foucault exhumed a hidden historical archive, Wiseman created a new one, in real time. He also created an institution of his own, Zipporah Films, to distribute his work. (Founded in 1971, it was named for his wife, Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, who was also a law professor; she died in 2021.)
He was a true independent whose method was as rigorous and as singular as his intellectual focus. On location, he worked with a spare crew comprising a cinematographer (from 1980 to 2020, John Davey) and a camera assistant; Wiseman himself carried the tape recorder and wielded the microphone until, for his last documentary, “Menus-Plaisirs—Les Troisgros,” from 2023, he could no longer do so.
As the literal bearer and the first hearer of his films’ sound, Wiseman was also the immediate receiver of the subjects’ discourse in its most concentrated form, on headphones, and his material relationship to these voices is embodied in the work. Much of the action is in the form of talking, which the incisively analytical images parse with the emotional precision of dramatic stagings, lending the talk a sort of emphatic onscreen incarnation. Filming with his ears and listening visually, Wiseman constructed mighty grids of connections and implications, long-term dramas on vast architectural frameworks as if they were cinematic operas. “Welfare” feels both colossal and brisk at two and three-quarter hours; “Central Park” is nearly three; “La Comédie-Française” approaches four; “Menus-Plaisirs” hits four; “Belfast, Maine,” “At Berkeley,” and “City Hall” exceed four. “Near Death” (which I consider a supreme masterwork, alongside “Welfare” and “In Jackson Heights” and the early, more journalistic “Hospital” and “Law and Order”) runs two minutes short of six hours.
Fans of Robert Duvall are mourning his passing on Sunday February 15 at age 95. The star of films including 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird (he played Boo Radley), Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, and Network began his career on stage, then working alongside fellow icons Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. In the 1970s and ’80s, Robert Duvall was a big-screen mainstay, even winning the Academy Award in 1983 for his role as a down-on-his-luck country singer in Tender Mercies.
Below, find 28 images that barely scratch the surface of his epic career.
Robert Duvall, who starred in such classics as “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II,” “M*A*S*H,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Tender Mercies,” for which he won the Academy Award, has died, his wife announced in a social media post Monday. He was 95.
Luciana Duvall said in a statement that her husband died Sunday at their home “surrounded by love and comfort.”
“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” she wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented. In doing so, he leaves something lasting and unforgettable to us all.”
One of the best actors of his generation with a career spanning nearly seven decades, Duvall was noted for his understated performances, subsuming himself into characters that manifested moral conflicts or ethical struggles.
Some of his most indelible portrayals included Tom Hagen, the Corleone family’s consigliere, in the first two “Godfather” films; Mac Sledge, a country singer seeking to redeem himself, in “Tender Mercies”; and his debut film appearance, as Boo Radley, a shy man who befriends young Scout, in the 1962 adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Robert Duvall on Jan. 5, 2011, in Hollywood, California.
Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
But Duvall could also go large, as shown by his full-throttle performances as Lt. Col. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now,” who leads a helicopter attack on a Vietnamese village in order to secure a safe zone for surfing; Bull Meechum, the overbearing Marine pilot and father in “The Great Santini”; and Frank Hackett, a corporate TV executive who runs roughshod over a news division in “Network.”
Working with such directors as Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, George Lucas, Philip Kaufman and Dennis Hopper, Duvall was one of the most visible and dependable actors in the 1970s and ’80s. He brought gravitas and a touch of subversion to such films as “True Confessions,” “The Stone Boy,” “Rambling Rose,” “The Natural,” “Colors,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “A Civil Action.”
And as he aged into mentor roles — as race car driver Tom Cruise’s pit crew chief in “Days of Thunder”; a hostage negotiator opposite Denzel Washington in “John Q.”; Michael Keaton‘s editor-in-chief in “The Paper”; an astronaut leading his crew to save the planet in “Deep Impact” — Duvall brought a commitment to anchoring a story in reality. In all, he earned seven Oscar nominations.
Robert Duvall as Mac Sledge, an alcoholic former country singer seeking redemption in the 1983 film “Tender Mercies.” Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his performance.
Keystone/Getty Images
Even in small parts, he could steal a movie. In 2004, he explained to CBS’ “60 Minutes II” that, whether his characters were heroic or villainous, down-to-earth or tenacious, there’s a bit of Robert Duvall in all of them. “Has to be. It’s you underneath,” he said. “You interpret somebody. You try to let it come from yourself.”
“You can’t step over the line”
A Navy brat (his father retired as a rear admiral), Duvall was born on Jan. 5, 1931, in San Diego, California, and raised in Maryland, Missouri and Illinois. He took drama classes in school, appeared in stage productions, served for a year in the Army in the 1950s, and then studied acting in New York alongside Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and James Caan. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1958’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession.”
Duvall had early TV roles on shows like “Playhouse 90,” “Naked City,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Route 66” and “The Untouchables,” and he made his first film appearance in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
He continued with a hefty resume of TV roles, including “The Outer Limits,” “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” “The Time Tunnel,” “The Wild Wild West,” “Judd for the Defense,” “Mod Squad” and “The F.B.I.” But Duvall began making bigger and bigger appearances on movie screens, including in “Countdown,” “Bullitt,” “True Grit” (as outlaw Ned Pepper) and a starring role in Coppola’s “The Rain People.” He also appeared on Broadway in the thriller “Wait Until Dark.”
Then came “M*A*S*H,” Altman’s 1970 satire of war, in which Duvall played Maj. Frank Burns, a by-the-book Army surgeon whose religious zeal didn’t get in the way of his having an affair with the hospital’s chief nurse, Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Burns becomes a foil and the butt of jokes of other doctors at the M*A*S*H unit until he is literally driven into a straitjacket.
Duvall followed “M*A*S*H” with a lead role in a science fiction film directed by one of Coppola’s friends, George Lucas. Inspired by one of Lucas’ film school shorts, “THX 1138” starred Duvall as a worker in a dystopian future who breaks free of the state’s mind-control efforts and escapes to a ravaged landscape.
But an even bigger role – in the context of popular culture – was Duvall’s supporting turn in Coppola’s “The Godfather.” Cast opposite Marlon Brando, James Caan and Al Pacino, Duvall played an Irish lawyer who had been “adopted” into the Corleone family – his sole client. Balancing the wishes of Brando’s Vito Corleone, the hot-headed antics of Caan’s Sonny and the resistance of Pacino’s Michael, Tom Hagen was a tested voice of reason, a deliverer of bad news and an instrument of revenge (as when he directed the dismemberment of a movie studio head’s prized horse).
Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), in a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather.”
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
“As an actor and a character both, you can’t step over the line,” Duvall told the A.V. Club in 2022. “[Hagen’s] an adopted son, so he is a member of the family, kind of; maybe not a thousand percent, but he’s very important to the family. And as an actor, you can’t step over that line, either. You have to kind of keep yourself in the background a little bit and then be called upon when needed.”
He would repeat the role in Coppola’s sequel, “The Godfather Part II.” But when Coppola went to film Part III of his gangster saga, Duvall and the studio couldn’t come to terms on salary, and so Tom Hagen was killed off.
“It smells like victory”
Duvall’s work in the 1970s included crime films (“Badge 373,” “The Outfit,” “Breakout”) and Westerns (“Lawman,” “Joe Kidd,” “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”). He appeared uncredited in Coppola’s “The Conversation”; starred in a barely released adaptation of a William Faulkner short story, “Tomorrow”; played Dr. Watson opposite Nicol Williamson‘s Sherlock Holmes in “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution”; and had a showy turn in the Sidney Lumet-Paddy Chayefsky satire “Network,” about a fictional TV network that boosts a mentally unstable news anchor to raise its moribund ratings. He also starred as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower in an ABC miniseries, “Ike.”
But 1979 marked two of Duvall’s most celebrated roles. In Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” he played Lt. Col. Kilgore, who leads a helicopter attack on a suspected Viet Cong village, blaring Wagner on loudspeakers. Kilgore’s bare-chested speech (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning … it smells like victory”), as a forest is incinerated nearby, articulated the brutality and insanity of war and became one of cinema’s iconic moments.
Duvall took his role seriously, even as explosives were discharged all around him. “I played a guy that didn’t flinch, so I didn’t flinch. You know what I mean?” he told Esquire magazine in 2014. “I played that kind of guy – a non-flinching guy. If you flinch when the script says not to flinch, you should be fired.”
The film, an independent production backed by Coppola, became a high-water mark in Hollywood’s approach to the Vietnam War. It also earned Duvall his second supporting actor Oscar nomination.
Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”
CBS via Getty Images
On the opposite end of the theatrical marketing spectrum from “Apocalypse Now,” Warner Bros. had little faith in “The Great Santini,” adapted from the Pat Conroy novel. Duvall played Col. Bull Meechum, a hard-as-nails Marine fighter pilot whose domineering personality collides with his family, in particular his 18-year-old son, Ben (Michael O’Keefe). The movie received little love when it was barely released in 1979; it was even shown on airplanes under a different title (“The Ace”). It wasn’t until summer 1980, when it received a belated release in a New York theater, followed by cable TV play, that it won positive reviews and a following. The movie earned Oscar nominations for both Duvall and O’Keefe.
In 1983, Duvall starred in the drama “Tender Mercies,” playing Mac Sledge, a country singer whose alcoholism derailed his career and who tries to make a spiritual and professional comeback. Written by Horton Foote, “Tender Mercies” was a quiet movie about a broken soul seeking redemption with a new family, his longings and aspirations voiced through country and gospel songs.
He sang every song himself. (That was part of his deal.) “They were trying to get around it,” Duvall told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” in 2006, “but I said, ‘No, no. This has to be part of it. You cannot dub later. I have to do that.’”
He won the Academy Award for his performance. “Not to brag, but I got calls from Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson telling me I had the character just right,” he told Roger Ebert in 2012.
Duvall had said his favorite role was Gus McCrae, the Texas Ranger turned philosopher cowboy, in the 1989 TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove.”
He admitted in a 2014 interview with Cowboys and Indians magazine that he didn’t always see eye to eye with the series’ Australian director Simon Wincer. “Sometimes when you have a little turmoil, it can turn out better than if everything is in total harmony,” he said.
Augustus “Gus” McCrae (Robert Duvall) and Newt Dobbs (Ricky Schroder) in the TV miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel.
CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
In playing such roles — stoic, quiet, complicated — Duvall told the Los Angeles Times in 1992, “I have a certain confidence. But this is an unforgiving milieu. You have to approach it by being unforgiving of yourself. You always start with zero, starting with the simplest things. I talk, you listen. You talk, I listen. With each part, you begin with the basics.”
Other films included “Rambling Rose,” “Newsies,” the TV movie “Stalin,” “Falling Down,” “Sling Blade,” “The Man Who Captured Eichmann,” “Wrestling Ernest Hemingway,” “Secondhand Lions,” “The Road,” “Get Low,” “Crazy Heart,” “Jack Reacher” and “The Judge.”
He filmed a 1974 documentary about rodeo riders, “We’re Not the Jet Set,” and then directed his first narrative feature, in 1983: “Angelo, My Love,” set in the world of the Roma. He was back in the director’s chair three more times, including “The Apostle” (which he also wrote), in which he played a Pentecostal preacher on the run from the law. The performance earned him his fifth Oscar nomination. He later directed “Assassination Tango” and “Wild Horses.”
Filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the thriller “Assassination Tango” was Duvall’s tribute to the tango. He starred opposite his girlfriend, Luciana Pedraza, who he’d met years earlier when she invited him to the opening of a tango shop. She and the three-times-married Duvall — four decades older than Pedraza — discovered they shared a passion for tango. They married in 2005.
Duvall talked with “60 Minutes” about his obsession with the Argentine dance: “It gets in your blood in a quiet way, kind of a sweet thing that sits there. He’s leading, he’s telling her what to do, but she embellishes. But in our politically correct world, up in the United States, they call it the leader and the follower. Down here, they call it the man and the woman.”
The qualities of Duvall’s work, from the histrionic to the silent, were evident in the naturalness of his delivery. As he said to “Sunday Morning,” “What makes what I do work? It’s this, what we’re doing right now: talking and listening. … That’s the beginning and the end. The beginning and the end is to be simple.”
As Tom Hagen, the trusted consigliere to the Corleone crime family in The Godfather saga, Robert Duvall did what he did better than any other actor of his generation—a generation that fed and fueled the New Hollywood revolution of the late ‘60s and ‘70s—he listened.
Make no mistake, Duvall was a bona fide Hollywood star with seven Oscar nominations and one win (for 1983’s Tender Mercies) to his credit. But deep down, the California native was a character actor through and through. On screen, he was authentic and selfless, pushing those around him to shine a little brighter than they otherwise would have. Showboating just wasn’t his style. Instead, he propped up others like a reinforced steel buttress, never demanding the close-up or the girl. No one could turn a side dish into an entrée like Duvall did during his brilliant seven-decade career. “It all begins with and ends with talking and listening,” Duvall once said. “I talk, you listen; you talk, I listen…. That’s the journey in an individual scene. There’s no right or wrong; just truthful or untruthful.”
Duvall died on Sunday, February 16 at age 95, his wife Luciana Duvall announced Monday via Facebook. “Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” she wrote. “Thank you for the years of support you showed Bob and for giving us this time and privacy to celebrate the memories he leaves behind.”
Scrounging for any kind of role in 60s New York, chasing girls, lending money to whichever of them was the most broke, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Duvall shared the risks, the rejections, and a fascination with the human drama. As they remember, stardom was unlikely—and irrelevant.
Born in San Diego in 1931, Robert Duvall was the child of a Navy rear admiral and a mother who had put her own acting ambitions aside to raise a family. His father thought that Duvall would follow in his footsteps with a career in the military, but instead the path that the young man would forge was his mother’s unfulfilled one.
After graduating from Illinois’ Principia College where he majored in drama, Duvall served in the army from 1953 to 1954, narrowly missing out on the Korean War. On the GI Bill, he began studying at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City under the legendary Sanford Meisner. His classmates included two other struggling actors, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, with whom he shared a shabby apartment when they weren’t passing one another on the way to menial jobs and no-hope auditions. They were hungry, in every sense of the word.
Duvall paid his early dues in New York’s exploding off-Broadway scene in the late ‘50s, taking parts in such stage classics of the era as Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. About that production, Hackman recalled to Vanity Fair: “In the first rehearsal, Bobby already had this kind of physical thing he was doing—like an animal—kind of glided across the stage. I was really impressed.” Night after night, performance after performance, tears would wet Duvall’s cheeks during his final monologue. By the early ‘60s, Duvall had segued into supporting roles on television (Naked City, The Twilight Zone) and eventually motion pictures. As luck would have it, Duvall’s debut film would become an instant classic—1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird—in which he played the misunderstood small-town bogeyman Boo Radley. Hoffman told Vanity Fair in the same 2013 article, “The feeling was that Bobby was the new Brando. I felt he was the one, and probably I wasn’t.”
Manchester Orchestra drummer Tim Very has died. The Atlanta rock band announced the loss on social media on Saturday (February 14), writing: “We’ve all been dreading sharing this news as we are all still in absolute disbelief.” No cause of death has been reported. Very was 42.
The son of a drummer father, Very picked up his own sticks for the first time as a teenager in Pensacola, Florida. Dave Grohl was an early influence, and some of the first songs Very learned to play came from Nirvana’s catalog. “I wasn’t one of those guys that got to start playing when I was like six years old, got lessons out the gate,” he told the podcast Drummers On Drumming in 2022. “It took me a little while to kind of find my identity. I instantly knew that this was something I was going to be doing for a long time.”
Very joined Manchester Orchestra in 2011, taking over for Jeremiah Edmond. Very played his first show with the band in London, during the UK leg of an international tour in support of Simple Math. “I threw up during it,” he told Alter The Press the day after the performance. “I can talk about it for hours, but I’ll just say this is what I’ve always wanted to do and these are guys I’ve known for a long time. It’s the best.”
Very would go on to become Manchester Orchestra’s longest-serving drummer, appearing on the group’s past three studio albums: 2014’s Cope, 2017’s A Black Mile to the Surface, and 2021’s The Million Masks of God. The band shared their most recent EP, The Valley of Vision, in 2023, and are set to release a live album, Union Chapel (London, England), this March. Outside of his work with Manchester Orchestra, Very was also a seasoned session musician, producer, and co-founder of the Georgia production company Super Canoe.
“Tim was instantly likable and interacted with everyone he met with kindness and warmth. His laugh was infectious and he immediately made people feel invited and encouraged,” Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull, Robert McDowell, and Andy Price said in a statement. “He had an undeniable light that was only matched by his dedication and love for the craft that he was clearly put on earth to do. No words can ever do him justice. Please know, if you are someone who loved Tim, he loved you too.”
James Van Der Beek, star of “Dawson’s Creek” and “Varsity Blues,” has died at age 48, according to his publicist and a post from his wife on social media.
Van Der Beek announced in November 2024 that he had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer. His cause of death was not shared.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning,” his wife Kimberly wrote on Instagram. “He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”
Van Der Beek’s publicist Whitney Tancred confirmed his death to CBS News.
Van Der Beek told People magazine in 2024 that he was “feeling good” despite the diagnosis. He did not provide other details of the disease and said he was “taking steps to resolve it,” but did not specify what treatment he received. In November 2025, he said he was auctioning items from his career to help pay for treatment.
Van Der Beek rose to fame as the titular Dawson Leery on “Dawson’s Creek,” which ran from 1998 to 2003. In 1999, he landed the lead in the film “Varsity Blues.” He continued to appear regularly in movies and television, including playing a fictionalized version of himself in “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23” in 2012.
Van Der Beek was married to actress Heather McComb from 2003 to 2009. In 2010, he married business consultant Kimberly Brook. They share six children. Van Der Beek said his wife suffered multiple miscarriages.
Colorectal cancer has become a leading cause of cancer-related deaths for Americans under the age of 50, and cases have been rising in that age group in recent years. According to the American Cancer Society, symptoms may include blood in the stool, changes in bowel habits, abdominal pain, bloated stomach, unexplained weight loss, vomiting and fatigue.
“Dawson’s Creek” co-stars, friends react to Van Der Beek’s death
“Dawson’s Creek” co-star Busy Philipps called Van Der Beek “one in a billion” and said he “will be forever missed.”
“I am just so so sad. He was my friend and i loved him and I’m so grateful for our friendship all these years,” Philipps said in an Instagram post.
Another “Dawson’s Creek” co-star, Chad Michael Murray, said on social media that Van Der Beek “inspired all of us.”
“Sending love and light to your beautiful family. James was a giant,” Murray said in an Instagram post. “We’re so so so sorry for what you’re going through. His words, art and humanity inspired all of us- he inspired us to be better in all ways. God bless you guys.”
Retired wrestler Stacy Keibler said in a social media post that she spent the past few days with Van Der Beek, saying she has “never been so present in my life.” In the post, Van Der Beek was pictured sitting in a wheelchair next to Keibler, looking at the sunset.
“When you know time is sacred, you don’t waste a single breath,” Keibler wrote on Instagram. “You don’t rush. You don’t scroll. You don’t worry about tomorrow. You sit. You listen. You hold hands. You watch the sky change colors and you let it change you too.”
Actor and “Dancing with the Stars” host Alfonso Ribeiro shared on social media that he was “broken” over the death and called Van Der Beek a “true friend brother and life guide.”
“I was with him through this horrible journey to beat cancer,” Ribeiro said on Instagram. “His family and friends went on this roller coaster ride. The highs when it looked like he had it beat to the breaking lows of it coming back. I’ve learned so much from james. He and [Kimberly] changed my life. I will forever be in debt for all they’ve given me and my family.”
James Van Der Beek, a heartthrob who starred in coming-of-age dramas at the dawn of the new millennium, shooting to fame playing the titular character in “Dawson’s Creek” and in later years mocking his own hunky persona, has died. He was 48.
“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith and grace. There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come,” said a statement from the actor’s family posted on Instagram. “For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend.”
Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was being treated for colorectal cancer.
Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance in September at a “Dawson’s Creek” reunion charity event in New York City after previously dropping out due to illness.
He appeared projected onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre during a live reading of the show’s pilot episode to benefit F Cancer and Van Der Beek. Lin-Manuel Miranda subbed for him on stage.
“Thank you to every single person here,” Van Der Beek said.
Forever tied to ‘Dawson’s Creek’
A one-time theater kid, Van Der Beek would star in the movie “Varsity Blues” and on TV in “CSI: Cyber” as FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, but was forever connected to “Dawson’s Creek,” which ran from 1998 to 2003 on The WB.
The series followed a group of high school friends as they learned about falling in love, creating real friendships and finding their footing in life. Van Der Beek, than 20, played 15-year-old Dawson Leery, who aspired to be a director of Steven Spielberg quality.
With Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait,” as its moody theme song, “Dawson’s Creek” helped define The WB as a haven for teens and young adults who related to its hyper-articulate dialogue and frank talk about sexuality. And it made household names of Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson.
“While James’ legacy will always live on, this is a huge loss to not just your family but the world,” Sarah Michelle Gellar wrote to his widow on Instagram. Katharine McPhee Foster added: “This is just beyond devastating news.” Others posting messages of mourning were Jenna Dewan and Olivia Munn.
The show caused a stir when one of the teens embarked on a racy affair with a teacher 20 years his senior and when Holmes’ character climbed through Dawson’s bedroom window and they curled up together. Racier shows like “Euphoria” and “Sex Education” owe a debt to “Dawson’s Creek.”
Van Der Beek sometimes struggled to get out from under the shadow of the show but eventually leaned into lampooning himself, like on Funny Or Die videos and on Kesha’s “Blow” music video, which included his laser gun battle with the pop star in a nightclub and dead unicorns.
“It’s tough to compete with something that was the cultural phenomenon that ‘Dawson’s Creek’ was,” he told Vulture in 2013. “It ran for so long. That’s a lot of hours playing one character in front of people. So it’s natural that they associate you with that.”
A popular GIF and ‘Varsity Blues’
More than a decade after the show went off the air, a scene at the end of the show’s third season became a GIF. Dawson was watching as his soul mate embarks on a love affair with his best friend and burst into tears.
“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it’s a magical moment and it just happens in the scene,” Van Der Beek told Vanity Fair. He seemed exasperated when he told the Los Angeles Times: “All of a sudden, six years of work was boiled down to one seven-second clip on loop.” (Van Der Beek himself recreated the GIF in 2011 for Funny or Die and gave it a second life.)
While still on “Dawson’s Creek,” Van Der Beek hosted “Saturday Night Live” — the musical guest was Everlast — and landed a plumb role in “Varsity Blues,” playing a second-string high school quarterback who leaps into the breach when the star suffers an injury.
Van Der Beek’s character, Mox, turns out to not be a football fanatic, preferring to read Kurt Vonnegut and yearning for the college education that will allow him to escape the jock mentality of his Texas town.
“I don’t want your life,” he screams at one point. Critic Roger Ebert called him “convincing and likable.”
After ‘Dawson’s Creek’
Some of his projects after “Dawson’s Creek” included co-creating and playing Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likable music producer in the mockumentary satire on Viceland, “What Would Diplo Do?” In 2019, he made it to the semifinals of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and played a balding, out-of-shape ex-boyfriend on “How I Met Your Mother.”
“The more you make fun of yourself and don’t try to go for any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011. “I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”
Between 2003 and 2013, he made appearances in shows like “Criminal Minds,” “One Tree Hill,” and “How I Met Your Mother.” He played himself with a crackpot intensity in the Krysten Ritter-led ABC drama “Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23,” and the short-lived “CSI” spinoff “CSI: Cyber” and CBS’ “Friends With Better Lives.”
He’s also appeared in movies such as Kevin Smith’s 2001 comedy “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and its 2019 sequel, “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.” He was in the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation of “The Rules of Attraction” in 2002 opposite Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth.
In 2025, he was unmasked as Griffin on “The Masked Singer,” after singing a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen.
Early life as a theater kid
Van Der Beek, who was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, started acting at 13 after suffering a concussion playing football that prevented him from playing for a year. He landed the role of Danny Zuko in his school production of “Grease.”
He stuck with theater, landing at 16 in 1994 an off-Broadway role in “Finding the Sun” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee and one of the sons in a revival of “Shenandoah” at the prestigious Goodspeed Opera House in his home state.
He earned a scholarship to New Jersey’s Drew University but left school early when he was cast in “Dawson’s Creek.” In 2024, he returned to campus to accept an honorary degree for his “selfless service and exemplary commitment to the mission of Drew,” the university said.
Drew University President Hilary Link welcomed Van Der Beek with a popular quote from his “Dawson’s Creek” character: “Edge is fleeting,” she said, “but heart lasts forever. So on this morning, we pay tribute to that heart.”
He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.
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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report.
Andrew Ranken, the drummer and occasional singer and songwriter of the Pogues, died Tuesday, February 10. The band announced the news on Instagram, describing the musician, known as the Clobberer, as a founding member and “heartbeat of the Pogues.” In her own post, Victoria Mary Clarke, the wife of late bandleader Shane MacGowan, said Ranken had died after a “long and brave battle with illness,” though no cause of death was given. He was 72 years old.
Native Londoner Ranken joined MacGowan, Peter “Spider” Stacy, and Jem Finer, in the band then known as Pogue Mahone, in 1983. He played on every record through the band’s first phase of infamy, including the classic 1985 album Rum Sodomy & The Lash, which he named as such because, he said, “it seemed to sum up life in our band.” Ranken remained in music after the Pogues’ first breakup in 1996, joining the reunited members between 2001 and 2014 and playing in other projects such as the Mysterious Wheels and hKippers.
In her tribute, Clarke commended Ranken for “braving all the beer-swilling, pogo-jumping, underground illegal drinking joints the fledgling band played and developing his own unique style of a warrior drumbeat. Without him the Pogues could never have developed their battle-ready rhythm and sound.”
Brad Arnold, the founder and lead singer of the 3 Doors Down, has died following “his courageous battle with cancer,” the rock band announced Saturday on social media. He was 47.
“With his beloved wife Jennifer and his family by his side, he passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones,” the band’s statement read in part. “His music reverberated far beyond the stage, creating moments of connection, joy, faith, and shared experiences that will live on long after the stages he performed on.”
Arnold announced in May 2025 in a video that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 clear cell renal cell carcinoma, a common type of kidney cancer, which forced 3 Doors Down to cancel its summer tour. Despite the grim diagnosis, the singer-songwriter said he had “no fear.”
Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down performs at Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center on Sept. 24, 2016, in Birmingham, Alabama.
David A. Smith / Getty Images
Born in Escatawpa, Mississippi, Arnold formed 3 Doors Down in 1996 with guitarist Matt Roberts and bassist Todd Harrell. Roberts died in 2016 of a suspected drug overdose. Harrell is no longer with the band following several DUI charges and a vehicular homicide charge.
Arnold himself struggled with alcoholism, but he said he had been sober for a decade. In January 2025, he told heavy metal news website Blabbermouth.net that the years without alcohol were “the best years” of his life.
The band’s biggest hit was the 2000 song “Kryptonite,” which was nominated for a Grammy Award. It was written by Arnold when he was just 15 years old in math class, the group’s statement said. Its first studio album, “The Better Life,” went platinum six times over.
“He was a devoted husband to Jennifer, and his kindness, humor, and generosity touched everyone fortunate enough to know him,” the band’s statement read. “Those closest to him will remember not only his talent, but his warmth, humility, faith, and deep love for his family and friends.”
Singer LaMonte McLemore, a founding member of vocal group The 5th Dimension, whose smooth pop and soul sounds with a touch of psychedelia brought them big hits in the 1960s and ’70s, has died. He was 90.
McLemore died Tuesday at his home in Las Vegas, surrounded by family, his representative Jeremy Westby said in a statement obtained by CBS News. He died of natural causes after having a stroke.
The 5th Dimension had broad crossover success and won six Grammy Awards , including record of the year twice, for 1967’s “Up, Up and Away” and 1969’s “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” Both were also top 10 pop hits, with the latter, a mashup of songs from the musical “Hair,” spending six weeks at No. 1.
McLemore had a parallel career as a sports and celebrity photographer whose pictures appeared in magazines, including Jet.
LaMonte McLemore of the 5th Dimension attends the grand opening of Catfish Alley Restaurant on April 14, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Marcel Thomas/FilmMagic via Getty Images
Born in St. Louis, McLemore served in the Navy, where he worked as an aerial photographer. He played baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm system and settled in Southern California, where he began making use of his warm bass voice and skill with a camera.
He sang in a jazz ensemble, the Hi-Fi’s, with future 5th Dimension bandmate Marilyn McCoo. The group opened for Ray Charles in 1963 but broke up the following year.
McLemore, McCoo and two of his childhood friends from St. Louis, Billy Davis Jr. and Ronald Towson, later formed a singing group called the Versatiles. They also recruited Florence LaRue, a schoolteacher McLemore met through his photography, to join them. In 1965 they signed to singer Johnny Rivers’ new label, Soul City Records, and changed their name to The 5th Dimension to better represent the cultural moment.
Their breakthrough hit came in 1967 with the Mamas & the Papas’ song “Go Where You Wanna Go.”
Members of The Fifth Dimension, from left, LaMonte McLemore, Florence LaRue, Ron Townson, Marilyn McCoo, and Billy Davis, Jr., pose with their Grammy Award in Los Angeles on Feb. 29, 1968.
Harold P. Matosia / AP
That same year, they released the Jimmy Webb-penned “Up, Up and Away,” which would go to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and win four Grammys: record of the year, best contemporary single, best performance by a vocal group and best contemporary group performance.
In 1968 they had hits with a pair of Laura Nyro songs, “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Sweet Blindness.”
1969 brought the peak of their commercial success with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” which along with its long run at No. 1 won Grammys for record of the year and best contemporary vocal performance by a group.
That same year they played the Harlem Cultural Festival, which has become known as the “Black Woodstock.” The festival, and The 5th Dimension’s part in it, were chronicled in the 2021 documentary from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, “Summer of Soul.”
The 5th Dimension also had a rare level of success with white audiences for a group whose members were all Black. The phenomenon came with criticism.
“We were constantly being attacked because we weren’t, quote, unquote, ‘Black enough,’” McCoo said in “Summer of Soul.” “Sometimes we were called the Black group with the white sound, and we didn’t like that. We happened to be artists who are Black, and our voices sound the way they sound.”
The group had hits into the 1970s including “One Less Bell to Answer,” “(Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All” and “If I Could Reach You.”
They became regulars on TV variety shows and performed at the White House and on an international cultural tour organized by the State Department.
The original lineup lasted until 1975, when McCoo and Davis left to make their own music.
“All of us who knew and loved him will definitely miss his energy and wonderful sense of humor,” McCoo and Davis, who married in 1969, said in a statement.
LaRue said in her own statement that McLemore’s “cheerfulness and laughter often brought strength and refreshment to me in difficult times. We were more like brother and sister than singing partners.”
McLemore is survived by his wife of 30 years, Mieko McLemore, daughter Ciara, son Darin, sister Joan and three grandchildren.
Actor Demond Wilson, best known for playing Lamont Sanford in the popular 1970s TV show “Sanford and Son,” has died at the age of 79, his publicist confirmed to CBS News on Sunday.
“The family of Demond Wilson is deeply saddened by his passing,” Mark Goldman told CBS News in a statement. “At this time, they ask for privacy as they grieve.”
He said no further details were available.
Wilson’s son, Demond Wilson Jr., told TMZ that his father died Friday of complications from cancer at his home in Palm Springs, California.
Demond Wilson attends the 2016 Chiller Theater Expo at Parsippany Hilton on April 22, 2016 in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Bobby Bank/WireImage via Getty
Goldman, who worked with Wilson for 15 years, said the actor’s loss is “profoundly felt.”
“He was an unbelievable man and his impact will never be forgotten,” he said. “The family appreciates the support and understanding of the community during this difficult time.”
Wilson, who was born in Georgia, grew up in New York City and studied tap dancing and ballet. He made his Broadway debut at the age of four with William Marshall and Ossie Davis in a revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Green Pastures” and danced at Harlem’s Apollo Theater at age 12. He served in the U.S. Army from 1966 until 1968 and was stationed in Vietnam.
After returning to New York, he appeared in several shows on Broadway before moving out to Los Angeles.
In 1971, he appeared on an episode of “All in the Family,” playing a burglar alongside Cleavon Little, who held the Bunkers hostage in their home. That role led him to land the part of Lamont Sanford, the son of aging widower Fred G. Sanford, in “Sanford and Son” alongside Redd Foxx.
Demond Wilson as Lamont Sanford, Whitman Mayo as Grady Wilson in “Sanford and Son”
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
After six seasons — which included five as a 10-ten hit — Wilson turned down an offer to lead the show by himself after Foxx left in a salary dispute. He went on to star in CBS’s “Baby … I’m Back,” but the show only last 13 episodes.
Wilson then starred opposite Ron Glass in “The New Odd Couple,” which only lasted 18 episodes.
In the 1980s, Wilson beat a cocaine problem and became ordained as an interdenominational minister. In 2009, he wrote the book, “Second Banana: The Bitter Sweet Memories of the Sanford & Son Years.”
Wilson is survived by his wife and their six children.
Friday, January 30, surprised everyone with the death of Catherine O’Hara. At 71, the actress known for Beetlejuice, Home Alone, and plenty of other movies and shows passed due to a “brief illness,” according to multiple reports.
Following the news, O’Hara was eulogized by several costars across the decades, including Home Alone’s Macaulay Culkin. “Mama, I thought we had more time,” he wrote on Instagram. “I thought we had time. I wanted more. I wanted to sit in a chair next to you. I heard you. But I had so much more to say. I love you. I’ll see you later.”
“She’s been my pretend wife, my pretend nemesis and my real life, true friend,” said Michael Keaton. “We go back before the first Beetlejuice. This one hurts. Man am I gonna miss her. Thinking about [her husband, Bo Welch] as well.”
“Oh, genius to be near you. Eternally grateful,” added The Last of Us’Pedro Pascal. “There is less light in my world, this lucky world that had you, will keep you, always. Always ♥️.” Separately, series co-creator Craig Mazin remembered her as a “wonderful, brilliant, kind, beautiful human being. I think she would prefer that we keep laughing somehow, or at the very least not cry. We were lucky to have had you at all.”
In a joint statement, the cast and crew of Apple’s The Studio called her “a hero to all of us, and we pinched ourselves every day that we got to work with her. We’re unbelievably saddened she is gone and send our deepest sympathy to Bo and all her family.”
Separately, her longtime friend and Schitt’s Creek costar Eugene Levy called it “an honor [to know and work with] Catherine for over fifty years. From our beginnings on the Second City stage, to SCTV, to the movies we did with Chris Guest, to our six glorious years on ‘Schitt’s Creek,’ I cherished our working relationship, but most of all our friendship. And I will miss her. My heart goes out to Bo, Matthew, Luke and the entire O’Hara family.”
We’ve collected more eulogies for O’Hara down below.
What an honor it was to be spoofed by Catherine O’Hara. What an unfathomable loss. We love you, Catherine. Comedy won’t be the same without her. Sending love to Catherine’s family, friends, castmates, and fans today. Truly beloved. pic.twitter.com/ucUYTj8zmm
This is shattering news. What a wonderful person, artist and collaborator. I was lucky enough to direct, produce and act in projects with her and she was simply growing more brilliant with each year. My heart goes out to Bo & family. #RIPCatherineO’Hara https://t.co/7pWcpYARai
From SCTV to Home Alone to her unforgettable role as Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek, Catherine O’Hara was a beloved Canadian icon with a rare gift for comedy and heart. She made people laugh across generations and helped bring Canadian storytelling to the world in a way only she… pic.twitter.com/tO72Xy3yqp
While working at Toronto’s Second City Theater, Catherine O’Hara was made Gilda Radner’s understudy.
When Radner left in 1974, O’Hara became a member of the company, and her ability to imbue her comedic characters with depth and humanity launched a decades-long career. pic.twitter.com/NazY2aEuQA
Actor Catherine O’Hara, known for her roles in “Home Alone,” “Beetlejuice,” and “Schitt’s Creek,” has died at 71, according to a statement from her agency, CAA.
O’Hara died at her Los Angeles home “following a brief illness,” her agency said in a statement.
A private celebration of life will be held by her family, the statement said.
O’Hara was born in Canada and started her career at Toronto’s Second City Theater, where she created the sketch comedy show “SCTV.” She won an Emmy Award for her writing on the show, and was nominated four other times, according to her agency.
Her star rose with several iconic comedy roles. Her most famous film roles include Delia Deetz in “Beetlejuice” and its sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” and as Kate McAllister in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone II: Lost in New York.” Other films she appeared in included “For Your Consideration” and “After Hours.”
She appeared on multiple television series, including “Six Feet Under,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Temple Grandin.” She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work on “Temple Grandin.”
In 2015, O’Hara joined long-time friend and fellow “SCTV” alum Eugene Levy in the comedy “Schitt’s Creek.” The two met in Toronto in 1970 and went on to share the screen in seven movies, including four mockumentary films with Christopher Guest. O’Hara told CBS News that she was initially nervous about doing “Schitt’s Creek,” but her “love and respect” for Levy and his son, series writer and star Daniel Levy, won her over. Her Moira Rose quickly became an iconic television character, sparking memes, merchandise and more. She won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her performance.
Most recently, O’Hara appeared in the Apple TV+ comedy “The Studio” and HBO’s “The Last of Us.” O’Hara received Emmy Award nominations for both roles.
In 1992, O’Hara married production designer Bo Welch, whom she met on the set of “Beetlejuice.” They had two children, Matthew and Luke.
O’Hara is survived by her husband, sons, and siblings Michael O’Hara, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Maureen Jolley, Marcus O’Hara, Tom O’Hara, and Patricia Wallice.
Lowell “Sly” Dunbar, the Jamaican drummer who reshaped reggae several times over as half of the duo Sly & Robbie, has died. “About seven o’clock this morning I went to wake him up and he wasn’t responding, I called the doctor and that was the news,” Dunbar’s wife, Thelma, said in a statement to The Jamaica Gleaner today, January 26. She did not disclose a cause of death, but shared that Dunbar had been sick for some time. He was 73.
Dunbar was born on May 10, 1952 in Kingston, Jamaica. As Sly & Robbie, he and bassist Robbie Shakespeare—who died in 2021—were one of the most sought-after rhythm sections of their day. They played on classic reggae records including Peter Tosh’s Legalize It, the Mighty Diamonds’ Right Time, and Black Uhuru’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and backed up the likes of Bob Dylan, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, and Serge Gainsbourg. Sly & Robbie also played a formative role in the evolution of dancehall, creating the Bam Bam riddim that became the foundation for some of the genre’s earliest hit singles. Dunbar and Shakespeare won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album (then called Best Reggae Recording) in 1985, the award’s inaugural year, for their work on Black Uhuru’s Anthem, and again in 1999 for the Sly & Robbie album Friend.
His birth name was Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani. To the world at large he was Valentino, the last emperor of fashion. The Chic. He passed away at one of his residences, in Rome, on Monday, January 19. He was 93 years old
Valentino was the definition of fashion, luxury, and pure aesthetics—you need only look to his collections for proof as much: simplicity distorted by a single theatrical touch (a bow, a puff, a neckline, a detail, a plunge bearing the heart). Look to that shade of red which takes his name to understand that he wasn’t just an excellent couturier (itself no small thing), he was a master of dreams devoted to beauty and enchantment. Beauty has always been the pinnacle to which Valentino relentlessly aspired, a passion he could not do without. And we are not just talking about red carpets or princess gowns, but the all-around beauty that permeated every moment of his life, flowing out of everything he did.
He was born on May 11, 1932, in Voghera, in the province of Milan. His father, Mauro Garavani, married Valentino’s mother, Teresa, and opened a barbershop before turning to a career in wholesaling electrical equipment, which guaranteed the family a certain affluence. In 1925 his mother gave birth to Valentino’s sister, Wanda, then, in 1932 came a baby boy who was given the same name as his paternal grandfather, Valentino.
The little boy went to school but was absent-minded, always hunched over books and filling the pages with endless drawings. He always loved to draw: he did it all the time. From those mountains of sketches came his wonderful ideas, recounting that the thunderbolt for fashion struck him very early, when he was six years old. That’s when the official engagement of Maria Francesca of Savoy, the last daughter of Victor Emmanuel III, to Prince Louis of Bourbon Parma was announced, with Maria dressed in a green lamé dress for the occasion. It was this sight that sparked an interest in fashion for young Garavani.
From there, he began spending more time in his aunt’s fabric store, making design his primary hobby. Which, of course, soon became more than a pastime. He’d eventually take a course in figurine design at the Santa Marta Institute in Milan. While pursuing his dreams Valentino enjoyed financial support of his father without much drama, even when he decided to move to Paris to further his education. Improvisation was not for him, he preferred to learn the fundamentals, get into the thick of things, make the art of the couturier his own. He enrolled in the prestigious school of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne and was put in Jean Dessès’s workshop, where he learned everything about technical construction, fabrics and color relationships.
Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark, the inseparable younger sister of Spain’s Queen Sofía, has passed away in Madrid’s Zarzuela Palace. A statement from the Royal House reads: “It is with deep sadness that the Greek Royal Family announces that HRH Princess Irene, beloved sister and aunt, passed away on Thursday, January 15th 2026, at 11:40 local time, in Zarzuela Palace in Madrid surrounded by loved ones. Details will follow regarding the funeral procession.”
Princess Irene was 83 at the time of her death. She leaves behind her a silent, but decisive mark in the history of the Greek and Spanish monarchies. Close confidant of King Felipe VI’s mother, for decades, Princess Irene became a silent witness of the ins and outs of the Spanish monarchy. She led an interesting life marked by her constant renunciation of the limelight, absolute loyalty to her family, and a spirituality influenced by the years she lived with her mother in India.
In her last moments, she had been accompanied by Queen Sofía, who canceled her schedule of activities in Palma de Mallorca to be by her sister’s side, Hello! magazine reported.
Settled in Zarzuela since the mid-eighties, for more than forty years, Princess Irene became the main support of her older sister, although she used to say that her role was not “official.” With an intense, unpredictable, and luminous personality, Irene won the affection of her large family, who affectionately called her “Aunt Pecu” (for being so peculiar), with whom she spoke in English and Greek despite speaking correct Spanish, and who loved and accompanied her until the end. She never married, but remained close with her kin. Queen Sofía and King Juan Carlos of Spain’s daughter, PrincessCristina, even named her only daughter Irene in her aunt’s honor.
Princess Irene was born on April 11, 1942 in Cape Town, South Africa, in the middle of World War II, while her family lived in exile due to the Nazi occupation of Greece. The first months of her life were spent on a farm, surrounded by domestic animals and wild landscapes, in an environment far from the European palaces that would come to define her adulthood.
From an early age, Princess Irene showed a personality of her own. She studied archaeology in Greece, another common interest with her sister, but soon broadened her horizons to the East. She spent six years in India, where she came into contact with the Gandhi family and was trained in comparative religious studies in ancient Madras.
Princess Irene of Greece performing Bach at the Royal Festival Hall in London, 1969.
