THE BUTCHER'S BILL 2006

As is my wont, here is just a little list of those famous fame-oids we lost this year:

Osa Massen, actress "Rocketship X-M"

Lou Rawls, singer "You're Gonna Miss My Lovin"

Shelley Winters, actress "Night of the Hunter", "Who Slew Auntie Roo", "The Poseidon Adventure"

Wilson Pickett, singer "In the Midnight Hour"

Fayard Nicholas, dancer "The Nicholas Brothers"

Chris Penn, actor "Reservoir Dogs"

Henry McGee, comedian "The Benny Hill Show"

Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader

Al Lewis, actor "The Munsters"

Moira Shearer, actress "Peeping Tom", "The Red Shoes"

Betty Friedan, author "The Feminine Mystique"

Franklin Cover, actor "The Jeffersons (Tom Willis)"

Peter Benchley, author "Jaws"

Akira Ifukube, film composer "Godzilla"

Phil Brown, actor "Uncle Owen in Star Wars"

Dennis Kirkland, producer "The Benny Hill Show"

Don Knotts, actor "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", "The Andy Griffith Show"

Dennis Weaver, actor "Duel", "McCloud"

Darren McGavin, actor "The Night Stalker", "A Christmas Story"

King Floyd, musician "Groove Me"

Jack Wild, actor "H. R. Pufnstuf", "Oliver!"

Ali Farka Toure, musician

Gordon Parks, director "Shaft"

John Profumo, former Member of Parliament/Profumo Affair scandal

Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia

Peter Tomarken, game show host "Press Your Luck"

Richard Fleischer, director "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Fantastic Voyage"

Buck Owens, singer "Hee Haw"

Dan Curtis, producer/director "Dark Shadows", "The Night Stalker", "Trilogy of Terror"

Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense

Gloria Monty, producer "General Hospital"

Gene Pitney, singer "Town Without Pity"

June Pointer, singer "The Pointer Sisters"

Alida Valli, actress "The Third Man"

Jennifer Jayne, actress "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "The Crawling Eye"

John Kenneth Galbraith, author

Maureen Stapleton, actress "Reds", "Johnny Dangerously"

Jay Presson Allen, writer, "Tru", "Deathtrap"

Louis Rukeyser, TV host, "Wall Street Week"

George Lutz, writer "The Amityville Horror"

Val Guest, director "The Quatermass Xperiment", "Quatermass 2"

Paul Marco, actor "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "Bride of the Monster"

Lloyd Bentsen, Former Senator/Vice Presidential Candidate

Desmond Dekker, singer "Israelites"

Alex Toth, comic artist "Space Ghost"

Paul Gleason, actor "The Breakfast Club"

Billy Preston, singer "Will It Go Round In Circles", "Nothing From Nothing"

Tim Hildebrandt, artist

Gyorgy Ligeti, composer

Arthur Franz, actor "Invaders From Mars", "Monster on the Campus"

Vincent Sherman, director "All Through the Night", "Return of Dr. X"

Moose, canine actor "Frasier", "My Dog Skip"

Aaron Spelling, producer "Charlie's Angels"

Kenneth Griffith, actor "The Prisoner", "Circus of Horrors", "I'm All Right, Jack"

Arif Mardin, producer "Beaches"

Kathy Wood, actress/widow of Ed Wood

Eileen Barton, singer "If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have Baked A Cake"

Jan Murray, comedian

Kasey Rogers, actress "Bewitched"

Syd Barrett, musician "Pink Floyd"

June Allyson, actress "Till the Clouds Roll By", "Good News"

Barnard Hughes, actor "The Lost Boys", "Tales from the Darkside"

Red Buttons, actor "The Poseidon Adventure"

Mickey Spillane, author "Mike Hammer"

Jack Warden actor "Death On the Nile"

Robert Cornthwaite, actor "The Thing From Another World"

Michael Sellers, actor/son of Peter Sellers

Arthur Lee, musician "Love"

Mike Douglas, TV host

Bruno Kirby, actor "City Slickers", "The Godfather Part II"

Maynard Ferguson, jazz musician

Joseph Stefano, screenwriter "Psycho"

Gerald Green, author "Holocaust"

Glenn Ford, actor "Gilda", "Superman the Movie"

Nellie Connally, wife of former Texas Gov. John Connally

Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter"

Herbert Rudley, actor "The Mothers-in-Law"

Pat Corley, actor "Murphy Brown"

Mickey Hargitay, actor "Lady Frankenstein", "Bloody Pit of Horror"

Elizabeth Allen, actress "Thriller - The Hungry Glass", "Thriller - The Grim Reaper"

Edward Albert, actor "Butterflies are Free", "When Time Ran Out"

Sally Gray, actress "Green For Danger"

George Balzer, writer "The Jack Benny Program"

Tamara Dobson, actress "Cleopatra Jones"

Frances Bergen, actress "Eating", "Murphy Brown"

Charles L. Grant, author

Freddy Fender, singer

Jumpin' Gene Simmons, singer "Haunted House"

Phyllis Kirk, actress "House of Wax"

Jane Wyatt, actress "Father Knows Best", "Star Trek"

Christopher Glenn, newsman/narrator "In the News"

Nigel Kneale, writer "Quatermass Xperiment", "Quatermass 2", "Quatermass and the Pit"

Ed Bradley, CBS newsman

Jack Palance, actor "City Slickers"

John Hallam, actor "Dr. Who "Ghost Light", "EastEnders"

Milton Friedman, economist

Ruth Brown, singer "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean"

Robert Altman, director "M*A*S*H*", "Gosford Park"

Dave Cockrum, comic artist "The Uncanny X-Men", "Legion of Super-Heroes"

Robert Lockwood Jr., blues artist "Can't You Hear the Wind Howl"

Betty Comden, songwriter "Singin' in the Rain"

Gerald Levert, singer "Levert"

Alan Freeman, actor/DJ "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "The Young Ones (as God)"

Emmett Kelly Jr., clown

Perry Henzell, director "The Harder They Come"

Jeane Kirkpatrick, politician

Martha Tilton, big band vocalist

Georgia Gibbs, singer

General Augusto Pinochet, Chilean dictator

Peter Boyle, actor "Young Frankenstein", "Everybody Loves Raymond"

Ahmet Ertegun, chairman of Atlantic Records

Joseph Barbera, cartoon director "Hanna-Barbera"

Mike Evans, actor "The Jeffersons", "All in the Family"

James Brown, singer "Say It Loud--I'm Black & I'm Proud"

Gerald R. Ford, former President

Saddam Hussein, long-time U.S.-backed flunky