A bulging-biceps good guy of wrestling
The Ultimate Warrior, one of the most colorful stars in pro wrestling history, has died, the WWE said. He was 54.
The WWE said Warrior, who legally changed his name from James Hellwig, died Tuesday. Scottsdale, Ariz., police spokesman Sgt. Mark Clark said he collapsed while walking with his wife to their car at a hotel and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Hellwig was one of pro wrestling’s biggest stars in the late 1980s. He beat Hulk Hogan in a memorable match at Wrestle Mania in 1990.
He was in the spotlight again earlier this week, making appearances at the latest Wrestle Mania in New Orleans and on Monday Night Raw, and being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
The Ultimate Warrior personified the larger-than life cartoon characters who helped skyrocket the WWE into the mainstream in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Warrior dressed in face paint, had tassels dangling from his super-size biceps and sprinted to the ring when his theme song hit. He’d shake the ropes and grunt and howl while the crowd went wild for the popular good guy.
He made his debut with the promotion when it was known as the World Wrestling Federations in 1987 and wrestled on and off for the sports entertainment empire until 1996.
More than 5.1 million viewers watched Warrior’s final appearance Monday night on Raw.
Obama’s Kenyan aunt; won asylum fight
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON - President Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango, who was denied asylum in the United States but stayed illegally for years, died Tuesday at age 61.
Onyango, whose immigration status was reported by The Associated Press days before Obama’s election in 2008, had been treated in recent months for cancer and respiratory problems, Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong said. She died in a Boston rehabilitation center, said Wong, who represented Onyango in her immigration case.
Onyango, a half sister of Obama’s late father, moved from Kenya to the U.S. in 2000 and was denied asylum by an immigration judge in 2004. She remained in the country illegally, living in Boston public housing.
She finally was granted asylum in 2010 by a judge who said she could be in danger if she returned to Kenya because of her relationship with Obama.
Onyango was born in Kenya in May 1952 under a mango tree and was delivered by a midwife, Wong said. She raised a family in Kenya and worked in the computer department of Kenya Breweries, she said.
The White House, which had no immediate reaction Tuesday to Onyango’s death, had said previously that Obama did not intervene in her immigration case.
Obama, in his memoir Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, affectionately referred to Onyango as Auntie Zeituni and described meeting her during his 1988 trip to Kenya. She helped care for his half brothers and sister while living with his father, Barack Obama Sr., in Kenya.
Maybelle in 1939’s Gone With the Wind
LOS ANGELES - Mary Anderson, a redheaded actress who auditioned for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind but wound up playing a supporting role as Maybelle Merriwether, died Sunday. She was 96.
A longtime resident of LA’s Brentwood neighborhood, Anderson died under hospice care in Burbank. She had been in declining health and had suffered a series of small strokes, said her longtime friend Betty Landess.
Anderson was one of the last surviving cast members of the film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War novel. Among the credited actors still living are Olivia de Havilland, who was nominated for an Academy Award as the resilient Melanie Wilkes, and Mickey Kuhn, a former child actor who portrayed Melanie and Ashley’s son Beau Wilkes. Alicia Rhett, who played Ashley Wilkes’ sister India, died in January at 98.
Sometimes called Bebe, Anderson was born in Birmingham, Ala., on April 3, 1918, although she often reported her birth year as 1920. While attending Howard College (now Samford University), she was discovered by director George Cukor, who was searching for an actress to play the leading role of Scarlett O’Hara. After firing Cukor, producer David O. Selznick eventually chose Vivien Leigh and cast Anderson in the minor role.
She went on to appear in films in the 1940s and ’50s, including Cheers for Miss Bishop, The Song of Bernadette and Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat.
Anderson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Her brother James became an actor who specialized in Westerns. He died in 1969.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/10/2014