Robert Donner LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Donner, a comedian and character actor known for his roles in TV's "Mork and Mindy" and "The Waltons" and movies including "Cool Hand Luke," has died. He was 75. Donner died on June 8 at his Sherman Oaks home of a heart attack, according to his former agent, Michael Belson. Donner played Exidor on "Mork and Mindy" and Yancy Tucker on "The Waltons." He also guest starred on such TV series as "Bonanza," Columbo," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Dharma & Greg" and "Matlock." In addition to "Cool Hand Luke," his film credits included "Bite the Bullet," "Vanishing Point" and John Wayne westerns including "El Dorado" and "Chisum." He also was a founding member of Harvey Lembeck's comedy-improv group, The Crazy Quilt Comedy Company. An avid golfer, he remained healthy and active until the end, Belson said. ——— Michael A. Dornheim LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael A. Dornheim, an award-winning journalist who worked for Aviation Week & Space Technology, has died. He was 51. His body was found Monday in a wrecked car that plunged off a mountain road. He had been missing for more than a week. Dornheim disappeared the evening of June 3 after dining with friends at a restaurant about a half-hour from his home. He had told the friends he intended to drive home by a less-traveled route. A Los Angeles County helicopter crew spotted Dornheim's car Monday afternoon off the road in the Santa Monica Mountains, between coastal Malibu and inland Calabasas, police said. The car was overturned 300 feet to 400 feet below the road. Police said the death appeared accidental. An investigation was continuing. Dornheim was a senior engineer on the aerodynamics staff at the Boeing Co. before he joined the editorial staff of Aviation Week in 1984. He also was a private pilot. He received the 1994 Aviation/Space Writers Association Award of Excellence for stories on the space shuttle. He was also a three-time winner of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards, which cited his coverage of aviation news, aerospace technology and air safety. "When it comes to things that fly — whether in the atmosphere or in space — no one could explain better than Mike Dornheim how things worked, or more importantly, why they didn't," Jim Asker, Aviation Week magazine's managing editor, said in a statement. ——— Neroli Fairhall WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Neroli Fairhall, a gold medalist in archery at the 1982 Commonwealth Games and the first wheelchair-using athlete to compete at an Olympics, died Sunday, said the New Zealand Olympic Committee. She was 61. Fairhall, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident, won a gold medal for New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, and was 35th after she broke ground for disabled competitors at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She was also a gold medalist at Paralympics, and a national champion and record-holder throughout her competitive career. Some rivals at the Olympics suggested Fairhall enjoyed an advantage in shooting from a sitting position. The controversy waned when, asked whether that was so, she replied: "I don't know. I've never shot standing up." ——— Gyorgy Ligeti VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who survived the Holocaust and went on to win acclaim for his work on the soundtrack for "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday after a long illness, said a spokeswoman for his publisher. He was 83. Ligeti was born in 1923 in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis, and he was arrested in 1943 as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II. After the war, Ligeti resumed his studies at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy. After graduation in 1949, he researched Romanian folk music, then returned to the academy as an instructor in harmony, counterpoint and formal analysis. Leaving behind a repressive regime in Hungary, he arrived in Vienna in 1956 and took Austrian citizenship in 1967. He won early critical acclaim for his 1958 electronic composition "Artikulation" and the orchestral "Apparitions." He gained notoriety for a technique he called "micropolyphony," which wove together musical color and texture in ways that transcended the traditional borders of melody, harmony and rhythm. Excerpts of his "Atmospheres," a requiem and 1966's "Lux Aeterna" were used on the best-selling soundtrack for Kubrick's "Space Odyssey." Although the music was not the film's well-known fanfare, which was composed by Richard Strauss, it won Ligeti a global audience. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel hailed Ligeti on Monday as "the greatest Austrian in the 20th century music world." ——— Mary Lutz BASKING RIDGE, N.J. (AP) — Mary Lutz, director of competitive riding for the physically challenged at the U.S. Equestrian Federation, died Friday after a fall from her horse, a federation spokeswoman said. She was 55. Lutz, who was wearing protective headgear while she was riding, died after being taken to Morristown Memorial Hospital, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Monday. A Basking Ridge resident and former riding instructor, Lutz started working in 1994 as an assistant for the U.S. Equestrian Team at its center in Gladstone. She became director of driving activities for the team and then became the federation's director of endurance and para-equestrian programs. "She had been our nanny, our friend, our mother, our sister, our conscience on so many levels," Art Priesz Jr., chairman of the federation's high performance endurance committee, told the newspaper. ——— Kenneth Thomson TORONTO (AP) — Kenneth Thomson, an understated billionaire who was Canada's richest person, died Monday, a company spokesman said. He was 82. Thomson, who owned about 70 percent of Thomson Corp., had become chairman of the global information company after the death of his father, Roy, in 1976. He turned the chairmanship over to his son, David, in 2002. Thomson remained on the board of Thomson Corp. and headed the Woodbridge Co., his family's private investment company. He was ranked ninth on the Forbes magazine list of the world's wealthiest individuals, with an estimated fortune of $19.6 billion. Under Ken Thomson, the Thomson Corp. and its corps of non-family managers sold most of the company's newspapers and other holdings to concentrate on providing specialist information to legal, investment, medical and other professionals, largely in electronic formats. Thomson's businesses include Thomson Financial, an electronic provider of financial information, and the legal information company Westlaw. Born Sept. 1, 1923, in Toronto, he was a private man who gave an impression of shyness in public, and was a major collector of art, focusing on old-style Canadian works by such painters as Paul Kane, Cornelius Krieghoff and the Group of Seven. He recently donated most of his 3,000-piece collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario, along with a substantial gift of money.

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