The cause was heart failure after a long illness, Bob Palmer, a spokesman for Mr. Farentino, said. Mr. Farentino, who died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, lived in Los Angeles.
“Farentino can play in anybody’s league as an actor,” Cecil Smith of The Los Angeles Times wrote in 1971. “Since he first drew attention opposite Bette Davis on Broadway in ‘Night of the Iguana,’ this fiery young star has cut a handsome swath through movies and television.”
Accolades came his way. In Mr. Farentino won a Golden Globe as the most promising newcomer in an otherwise forgettable 1966 film, “The Pad (and How to Use It).” He was nominated for an Emmy in 1978 for his portrayal of St. Peter in the television mini-series “Jesus of Nazareth.”
A prominent role early in his career was as Happy Loman in the 1966 television version of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” (Lee J. Cobb played Willy Loman and George Segal was Willy’s other son, Biff.) Nine years later, Mr. Farentino had a turn as Biff in a Broadway production starring George C. Scott as Willy.
“This is not a one-man play,” Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times. “Willy’s son Biff is crucial to Mr. Miller’s vision, and here it is wonderfully given by James Farentino, who stands toe to toe to Mr. Scott, like a gladiator. His picture of corrupted glory and tarnished innocence gives Mr. Scott his perfect counterpart.”
James Farentino was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 24, 1938. He dropped out of high school and was working at odd jobs when he began studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1961 he was cast as one of Bette Davis’s Mexican beach boys in “The Night of the Iguana” on Broadway.
He moved to Hollywood, signed a contract with Universal and wound up being suspended 10 times for refusing to accept roles. That may have been an indication of later tumult in his life. In 1994 Mr. Farentino pleaded no contest to stalking his former girlfriend, Tina Sinatra, a daughter of Frank Sinatra. He was placed on six months’ probation.
Mr. Farentino’s marriages to the actresses Elizabeth Ashley, Michele Lee and Deborah Mullowney (now known as Debrah Farentino) ended in divorce. He is survived by his fourth wife, Stella, and their son, Saverio, and by his son, David, with Ms. Lee.
But the incident involving Ms. Sinatra took its toll on his career, Mr. Farentino told The Los Angeles Times in 2003. Admitting that his behavior had been “appalling,” he said, “The roles started to get smaller and smaller with less value.”
The cause was congestive heart failure, his daughter Lynn said.
Mr. Tufeld’s broadcasting career began in the 1940s in radio and reached into the contemporary age of television on “The Simpsons.”
His voice, with its midrange, goes-down-easy, slightly excited, static-free hum, first became recognizable narrating “Space Patrol,” a live radio show for children (it was also a television program) that began in 1950 and ran until the mid-1950s, with Mr. Tufeld introducing the shows’ weekly missions made “in the name of interplanetary justice.” In the 1950s and ’60s he could be heard on episodes of “Annie Oakley,” “Zorro,” “Peyton Place,” “Surfside 6” and “Bewitched.” He worked on variety shows starring Red Skelton and Judy Garland and cartoon shows featuring Bugs Bunny and Garfield. He narrated “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” and the trailer for the Disney film “Mary Poppins.” He did ads for Zenith televisions: “A giant 25-inch picture” with “redder reds, brighter greens and more brilliant blues!”
Later he worked on game shows, including “The Joker’s Wild” (“A jackpot of fun and surprises!”), the comedy series “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and the 1978 animated version of “Fantastic Four.”
But most television aficionados of a certain age will remember Mr. Tufeld for his roles in adventure series of the 1960s produced by his friend Irwin Allen: “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” about the crew of a submarine, which starred Richard Basehart and David Hedison; “The Time Tunnel,” about scientists who find themselves present at historic events; and “Lost in Space,” a futuristic — it was set in 1997 — reimagination of “Swiss Family Robinson.” In “Lost in Space” a clean-cut, space-traveling clan (the Robinsons), along with a pilot and a talking robot (physically, a hulking ancestor of R2D2 from “Star Wars,” played by Bob May but voiced by Mr. Tufeld), is sent careening around the galaxy by the machinations of a conniving villain, who is somehow marooned on the spacecraft himself. Alighting on various planets, they have campy, semi-threatening adventures.
The cast included Mark Goddard as the pilot, Maj. Don West; Jonathan Harris as the villain, Dr. Zachary Smith; and Guy Williams, June Lockhart, Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright and Billy Mumy as the Robinsons. Billy was the family’s youngest child, Will, the focus of one of the robot’s most frequent and most famous declarations: “Danger, Will Robinson!”
The show, which ran from 1965 to 1968, had its fanatical adherents. It was resurrected for a 1998 movie that starred Gary Oldman, William Hurt and Matt LeBlanc. Several original cast members appeared in the film, but Mr. Tufeld was the only one to reprise his role.
“It was no big deal, since 30 years have passed and no one ever saw my face,” he said at the time. “It’s not like the robot needs Botox.”
Richard Norton Tufeld was born in Los Angeles, on Dec. 11, 1926, and grew up in Pasadena, Calif. His parents were immigrants — his father, who ran a successful furniture business, from Russia, and his mother from Canada. He graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where he studied speech. His wife of 55 years, Adrienne Blumberg, died in 2004.
Mr. Tufeld is survived by two daughters, Lynn Tufeld and Melissa Tufeld-Gerber; two sons, Bruce and Craig; a brother, Howard, known as Bud; and six grandchildren.
A sports fanatic (one of his early gigs was as the play-by-play announcer for the Hollywood Stars, a minor league baseball team) and a jazz fanatic, Mr. Tufeld had what his children describe as myriad interests.
“But what he really loved was speaking,” his daughter Lynn said. “He really did. In kindergarten — it would be abuse now, but the teacher once taped his mouth shut to keep him quiet.”
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JOHN LEVY, BASSIST AND TALENT MANAGER
By NATE CHINEN
Published: January 24, 2012
John Levy, a bassist and pioneering talent manager whose roster included some of the biggest names in jazz, notably Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Cannonball Adderley and Wes Montgomery, died on Friday at his home in Altadena, Calif. He was 99.
Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos
John Levy, left, with the pianist Billy Taylor in 1998.
His death was confirmed by his wife and business partner, Devra Hall Levy.
Widely credited as the first African-American personal manager in jazz, Mr. Levy entered that profession by happenstance: he was a member of the original George Shearing Quintet in the late 1940s, and by virtue of his diligent practicality, he gradually found himself entrusted with most of the group’s business decisions. He established his management company, John Levy Enterprises, in 1951; Shearing, the British pianist then still riding the momentum of an international hit, “September in the Rain,” became his first client.
He would go on to represent singers like Betty Carter, Abbey Lincoln and Shirley Horn; pace-setting bandleaders like Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis, Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock; and crossover stars like Roberta Flack and Les McCann.
Self-taught as a businessman, Mr. Levy cultivated bonds of trust with his clients, preferring a handshake to a formal contract. At a time when jazz musicians were often at the mercy of inequitable deals with club owners, record labels and publishing houses, he earned a reputation for clear-eyed tenacity.
In dealing with artists it didn’t hurt that Mr. Levy was an accomplished jazz musician himself. In the handful of years before he became a full-time manager, he had accompanied Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall; worked with the tenor saxophonists Don Byas and Lucky Thompson; and recorded in a trio with the pianist Lennie Tristano and the guitarist Billy Bauer. He anchored Shearing’s modern but accessible quintet. And he was on one of the first recordings by the pianist Erroll Garner.
John Levy was born on April 11, 1912, in New Orleans. His father, John, was a railroad engine stoker; his mother, Laura, a midwife and nurse. Mr. Levy said he was largely reared by his grandparents. When he was 5 his family moved to Chicago, taking an apartment above the Royal Gardens, a dance hall that featured New Orleans jazz. He became a bassist in his teens after dabbling in piano and violin; the bassist Milt Hinton, though only a few years older, was a mentor.
Mr. Levy found his foothold in the Chicago jazz scene while working a day job at the post office, running a small-time numbers racket and starting a family with his first wife, Gladys. He bought a cheap plywood bass, painted white, that would serve him through most of his musical career. Through the black musicians’ union he landed a gig with the violinist Stuff Smith, who ended up bringing him to New York.
The Stuff Smith Trio, also featuring the pianist Jimmy Jones, held a steady engagement at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street, beginning in 1944; from time to time the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster would join as a special guest.
Mr. Levy had no problem finding subsequent work, especially once he formed a working partnership with the drummer Denzil Best, his band mate in the Shearing Quintet. The two hired themselves out as a rhythm section.
Mr. Levy’s first three marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife; his son, Michael; his daughters Pamela McRae, Samara Levy and Jole Levy; 15 grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren. His second wife, Gail Fisher, was among the first black actresses to have a prominent role in a primetime dramatic series, “Mannix.” She died in 2000.
In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Levy as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest jazz honor.
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BILL MARDO, WRITER WHO PUSHED BASEBALL TO INTEGRATE
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: January 24, 2012
Bill Mardo, a sportswriter for the Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker who fought major league baseball’s color barrier in the 1940s when the mainstream American news media was largely silent on the subject, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 88.
The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his companion, Ruth Ost, said.
In the years before the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson as the first black player in modern organized baseball, Mr. Mardo was a leading voice in a campaign by The Daily Worker against racism in the game, a battle it had begun in 1936 when Lester Rodney became its first sports editor.
Mr. Mardo, who joined The Daily Worker in 1942, oversaw its sports coverage, together with Nat Low, during World War II, when Mr. Rodney was in the Army. Mr. Mardo had a deferment, having lost vision in one eye from a childhood virus.
The Daily Worker asked fans to write to the New York City baseball teams urging them to sign Negro league players at a time when the major leagues had lost much of their talent to military service. A milestone in baseball history and the civil rights movement arrived in October 1945 when Robinson signed a contract with the Dodgers’ organization, having reached an agreement with Branch Rickey, the Dodger general manager, two months earlier.
Mr. Mardo covered Robinson’s first spring training, with the Dodgers’ Montreal Royals farm team in 1946, and wrote of the hostility toward him in parts of segregated Florida.
As Robinson was concluding a brilliant 1946 season, Mr. Mardo wrote that racism would be smashed by the arrival of black players, which, he said, “in one fell swoop does as much to arm and educate the American people against this monstrous lie as do all the pamphlets in the world.”
After Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers in 1947, Mr. Rodney and Mr. Mardo called on the owners of the other 15 teams in the majors to sign black players.
Rickey had not acknowledged being pressured by The Daily Worker. But in recounting the campaign to shatter baseball’s color bar, Arnold Rampersad wrote in “Jackie Robinson: A Biography” (1997) that “the most vigorous efforts came from the Communist press, including picketing, petitions and unrelenting pressure for about 10 years in The Daily Worker, notably from Lester Rodney and Bill Mardo.”
Mr. Mardo was born William Bloom in Manhattan on Oct. 24, 1923. His interest in left-wing politics arose when he read a copy of The Daily Worker as a teenager, and he became a member of the Communist Party. He changed his name to Mardo as a tribute to his sisters Marion and Doris when he began his career in journalism.
Apart from reporting on baseball, Mr. Mardo wrote a boxing column for The Daily Worker, “In This Corner.” He left the newspaper to work as a Washington reporter for the Soviet news agency Tass in the early 1950s. He later worked in direct-mail advertising.
His marriage in the 1950s ended in divorce, and he had no children.
In April 1997, Mr. Mardo and Mr. Rodney (who died in 2009) spoke at a symposium at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus marking the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers.
Mr. Mardo noted that Rickey had not signed blacks when he ran the St. Louis Cardinals for more than two decades and suggested it was not idealism but pressure from black sportswriters, trade unions and the Communist Party that persuaded him to sign Robinson.
“Where were you looking all those years, Mr. Rickey?” Mr. Mardo said. “Istanbul? The South Seas?”
But on April 10, 1947, when the Dodgers announced they were bringing up Robinson from Montreal, Mr. Mardo, sitting in the Ebbets Field press box, could only exult.
“There’s time tomorrow to remember that the good fight goes on,” he wrote for the next day’s Daily Worker. “But, for today, let’s just sit back and feel easy and warm. As that fellow in the press box said, ‘Robinson’s a Dodger’ — and it’s a great day, isn’t it?”
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BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 