Photos of George Carlin via his MySpace profile Comedian George Carlin died of heart failure at 5:55 p.m. today at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica. It was announced a few hours later, shortly before 9 p.m., by his publicist. He was admitted into the hospital for chest pains earlier in the afternoon. In honor of the comic genius who made millions laugh, loved words and called bullshit when it was needed during his......

Stan Winston, legendary Hollywood special-effects wizard, died this weekend at his home at age 62. He succumbed to multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, after a 7-year struggle with the disease. Winston created some of the most memorable creatures in modern cinema, including the Terminators, the "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs, and more recently, the character suit for "Iron Man." Winston accumulated four Academy Awards and ten nominations over the course of his career; his first......

Tim Russert, NBC News' Washington bureau chief and moderator of "Meet the Press" died after collapsing at NBC Studios in New York this afternoon. He was 58 years old. Retired NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw delivered the news at 12:39 p.m. LA time:“Our beloved colleague,” a somber Mr. Brokaw called him, one of the premier journalists of our time. He said this was one of the most important years in his life, with his deep......

Veteran actor and director Sydney Pollack has died. The 73-year-old Oscar winner died today in his home in the Pacific Palisades, and representatives are saying the cause was cancer. Pollack was born in 1934 in Indiana. He studied acting under Sanford Meisner in New York and began his career on the stage. According to the New York Times, Mr. Pollack’s career defined an era in which big stars (Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty) and......

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, died at his home near Basel, Switzerland on Tuesday. Hofmann synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) in 1938 and five years later became the first person to experience a full-blown acid trip. On April 16, 1943, Hofmann inadvertently absorbed a little LSD-25 compound in his fingertips at the Sandoz laboratory (now Novartis) where he worked. In a note to the lab director he described what happened next:“I was......

Charlton Heston has died at the age of 84. While this might be an opportunity to lambaste Heston for his crusade of right wing causes for the last decade, let's remember that, on this 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., that Heston used to be a liberal Democrat who participated in the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. He also opposed McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and despised Richard Nixon -......

The great reggae dj and singer/producer Mikey Dread (born Michael George Campbell) passed away March 15th from a brain tumor at age 54. An engineer in the mid 70s at the JBC, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, Dread started "Dread at the Controls", the first all-reggae show in a time where most of the music played was pop music from other countries. The show became a huge hit and Dread went on to record his own......

Inside a Fatburger location in Van Nuys Lovie Yancey, who launched what eventually became the popular Fatburger chain of burger-and-fries joints, died January 26th of pneumonia here in Los Angeles. Initially called Mr. Fatburger, the fast-food restaurant first opened in 1947. Hoping to capitalize on the burger trend that was becoming increasingly popular, Yancey dropped the "Mr." in 1952 and by 1981 was offering franchises of what was now known as "The Last Great......

Outside the scene of Heath Ledger's death in NYC | Photo by Tien Mao, Gothamist.com Gothamist, parent site to LAist, is reporting the death of Heath Ledger. "Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in downtown Manhattan apartment by the police. Some reports say he died from an overdose." Ledger lived on Broome street. Ledger was a rising star and actor from Australia, known for his work in Brokeback Mountain, which earned him a best......

Fans of the LA Rams weren't known to be fans of team owner Georgia Frontiere, who moved the NFL football franchise to her hometown of St Louis in 1995. The woman who took over ownership of the team in 1979 from her sixth husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, when he died by drowning, died yesterday at the age of 80 after a long-fought battle against breast cancer. Frontiere had been hospitalized for months prior to her death.......

Richard Knerr June 30, 1925 - January 14, 2008 Richard Knerr, co-founder of Wham-O Inc, passed away Monday at the age of 82 at Methodist Hospital in Arcadia after suffering from a stroke. His business partner, Arthur "Spud" Melin, preceded him in death in 2002. Wham-O was founded on a slingshot, and together childhood friends Knerr and Melin went on to found an empire. The name Wham-O was onomotopoeia for the sound made when the......

Read the "sassy" version of this story here. Ike Turner, ex-hubby to Tina Turner and a "rock and roll pioneer", died last month on December 12 in his northern San Diego county home. The cause of death was not immediately known then, but today, the results from the coroner came to light."We are listing that he abused cocaine, and that's what resulted in the cocaine toxicity,'' said Paul Parker, chief investigator at the medical examiner's......

Actor Brad Renfro was found dead yesterday in his Los Angeles apartment, of causes unknown, but for reasons that are no doubt both tragic and infuriating. He was the cute little kid who acted alongside huge names like Susan Sarandon, Ian McKellan, and Mary Louise-Parker, the cute little kid who grew up to be a troubled but still talented young man, the young man who spiraled downward into a diseased web of drugs and......

If Maila Nurmi had never created her alter ego, Vampira, I wouldn't know how to act, dress or put on make-up. As the Misfits sang: “Two inch nails, micro waist, with a pale white feline face, inclination eyebrows to there.” Nor would it have been as cool to be into all the weird, spooky, horror show stuff that I’ve loved since childhood. We all need role models, and without mine, I would have been......

Ed LaDou, the father of modern California-style pizza, has died of cancer at age 52 in Santa Monica. LaDou is best known for his work at Wolfgang Puck's legendary Spago; LaDou was the first to experiment with unusual and innovative pizza toppings like duck and smoked salmon, and he also helped develop the menu for the casual dining chain California Pizza Kitchen. From The LA Times: "Ed really set the tone for the pizza,"......

TV character actor John Berg was found dead at his Van Nuys residence Sunday afternoon. Berg took his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning using a hibachi grill. He was 58. "He died as a result of suicide ... from suffocation," Lt. John Kadas of the coroner's office said. "A hibachi grill was used inside his bedroom. It's a fairly common form of suicide where it's put inside an enclosed space and then lit up.......

Ike Turner, ex-hubby to Tina Turner and a "rock and roll pioneer", died this morning in his northern San Diego county home. The cause of death is not immediately known. Despite winning a Grammy this year in the traditional blues category ("Risin' With the Blues") , being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and known for having the first rock 'n' roll record ("Rocket 88," 1951), Turner's image is marked in the media......

One of the most important composers of the 20th Century, German avant-garde and electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, has died. The cause of his Wednesday death, which was announced today, is unknown at this point. Stockhausen made his way into pop culture when his image appeared on the Beatles album cover to the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album. After 9/11, his name surfaced in the main stream media when the press misinterpreted a statement......

Pour a lil cough medicine on the floor for this dead homie: paramedics were called to the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in response to a 911 call this morning, where they found rapper Pimp C, also known as Chad Butler, dead of mysterious causes. The artist had just performed a show at the House of Blues with Too $hort a few days ago. From the Los Angeles Times: "The hotel released the following......

Days after making up with rapper Kanye West, legendary daredevil Evel Knievel has landed himself in the news once again, not for making an improbable stunt landing, but for doing something one day all of us regular folks are going to do. He died today in his home state of Florida at the age of 69. The AP is reporting:Knievel's death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for......

One of heavy metal's signature vocalists has died at the too-young age of 52. Kevin DuBrow grew up in Hollywood and Van Nuys and in the late 1970s became the lead singer for Quiet Riot, the glam-metal brainchild of guitarist Randy Rhoads. Though Quiet Riot's brand of hard rock -- or whatever you wish to call it -- was never the same after the 1980s, Quiet Riot carried on, true to form, was featured on......

“Carol Baker Tharp loved the City of Los Angeles and spent the past year working to strengthen its neighborhoods as the General Manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said today in a statement announcing the passing of Carol Baker Tharp. "Though we mourn her passing today, we take comfort in the fact that her work and ideas will continue to yield positive benefits for the people of Los Angeles.” Tharp was......

One of the best known personalities in tv advertising, Dick Wilson, better known as Mr. Whipple died today in the Valley, he was 91. The iconic character actor made over 500 commercials where he'd try to protect the precious tp from being felt up and smelled, while at the same time falling for its charms. Says the AP: The man famous as TV's "Mr. Whipple" died of natural causes at the Motion Picture &......

The Blood Brothers - "Love Rhymes with Hideous Car Wrecks" One of our favorite bands has announced today that they are throwing in the (bloody) towel. The Blood Brothers had an experimental sound that utilized two singers (one who had a screeching voice) to produce a one-of-a-kind style, that sadly was a little too good for the average iPod user. Here's the email that was just sent to us via their PR peeps: After......

From RobertGoulet.com we hear this very sad news that was posted yesterday: Robert Goulet, the legendary star of stage, screen, television and recordings, was pronounced dead at 10:17am today. He had been suffering from a rapidly progressive pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that is most often fatal. Most treatments are ineffectual. The only successful treatment is lung transplantation. Mr. Goulet had been in intensive care at Cedars Sinai since October 14, 2007. At the time......

What happens when you run one of the largest, "extremely lucrative" networks of invite-only, torrent-based music piracy? Interpol comes knocking at your door. Next thing you know all of your properties, including that covert warehouse in Amsterdam where your server is based, are seized in a raid-like manner. As though you were exporting/importing pounds of Class A drugs. Last night around 2 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, OiNK was officially taken off the web. By......

SFist wrote a beautiful obit to our dead friend, Guest: Some not-so-sad news: missing for several weeks, guest's dead body was found in a ditch this morning, naked and beaten beyond recognition. Dental records and IP info were used to identify the body. Guest has no known survivors. To read more about it, go here. Find out why here. In lieu of flowers, you can register if you haven't already. We suggest using your real......

Joe Zawinul was perhaps the most innovative of the creative leaders of "jazz fusion." With Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, and Tony Williams, Zawinul helped shape the very electric sound of Miles Davis' touring band of the late 60's and contributed key compositions to the cornerstone recordings of jazz fusion, 1969's In a Silent Way and 1970's Bitches Brew. Zawinul may be best remembered as a founding member of Weather Report, the fusion......

The one and only Puck (1991-2007). You may think your family dog was the most badass ever, but no, mine was. In fifth grade, I returned home from a sleepover to find an absolutely psychotic bundle of black fur in our kitchen, barricaded in by a row of tall, heavy objects, such as hampers and unused nightstands, ripped-up and peed-on newspaper shreds at his feet and an old stuffed toy duck of my brother's......

One of the world's most famous singers, Luciano Pavarotti, the most interesting of The Three Tenors, has just died. He was 71. Pavarotti had been treated for pancreatic cancer since last year, which is probably what did him in today. His weight problems led to heath issues, but it didn't stop him from being loved by the ladies. A few years back he divorced his wife of 37 years for a woman 35 years......