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Doctor Who director Derek Martinus dies aged 82

Doctor Who's longest-serving director and Top of the Pops disc spinner
Derek Martinus, who directed some of Doctor Who's best known episodes between 1965 and 1970, featuring the first three Doctors, has died aged 82. BBC

Richard Hoggart obituary
Pioneer of cultural studies, he wrote the groundbreaking book The Uses of Literacy
John Ezard guardian.com

Gabriel García Márquez obituary
Colombian Nobel laureate who helped to launch boom in Latin American literature with novel One Hundred Years of Solitude
Nick Caistor guardian.com

Richard Broke obituary
Film and TV producer behind such politically controversial BBC dramas as The Monocled Mutineer and Tumbledown
Torin Douglas guardian.com

Stand Up Virgin Soldiers author Leslie Thomas OBE has died aged 83

The Welsh-born writer died at his home on Tuesday surrounded by his family after battling a lengthy illness.

Thomas was raised in a Barnardo’s home after his sailor dad drowned at sea and his mum died of cancer a few months later.

He shot to fame after his debut novel The Virgin Soldiers, published in 1966, sold four million copies.

The book was inspired by Thomas’s two years national service in Malaya after signing up aged 19.

The comic romp about a group of British soldiers based in the Far East was turned into a hit 1969 film starring Lynn Redgrave, Hywel Bennett and Nigel Patrick.

A follow-up movie was later made called Stand Up Virgin Soldiers.


Mirror

Farley Mowat obituary
Fiery conservationist, writer and defender of Canada's wilderness

Jay Parini guardian.com

Charismatic and passionate warm and wise, formidable without being forbidding, American author and poet Maya Angelou, who has died aged 86, was a role model and an activist who recorded and celebrated the experience of being black in the United States BBC

James Garner obituary
Versatile film and television actor who starred in Maverick and The Rockford Files
Veronica Horwell Guardian.com

Dora Bryan: Summer Wine and Ab Fab actress dies aged 91

Dora Bryan, the veteran British actress whose long career encompassed theatre, film, radio and television, has died in Hove, near Brighton, at the age of 91.

She was best known for her roles in Last of the Summer Wine and Absolutely Fabulous, and won a best actress Bafta for the 1962 film A Taste Of Honey.

Her grandson Sam said her "longevity as an actress had been truly incredible".

She died at the Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, with her sons Daniel and William at her bedside.

BBC

Charles Keating obituary
Dashing stage and screen actor who worked with the RSC and appeared in several American daytime television shows

Michael Coveney guardian.com

Lord Richard Attenborough dies aged 90



He died at lunchtime on Sunday, his son told BBC News.

Lord Attenborough was one of Britain's leading actors, before becoming a highly successful director.

In a career that spanned six decades, he appeared in films including Brighton Rock, World War Two prisoner of war thriller The Great Escape and later in dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park.

As a director he was perhaps best known for Gandhi, which won two Oscars.

Lord Attenborough had been in a nursing home with his wife for a number of years, BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said.

He had also been in a wheelchair since falling down stairs 6 years ago, our correspondent added.

His family is expected to make a full statement tomorrow.

BBC

Richard Attenborough obituary
British film industry luminary who began his career as a character actor before triumph as a director with Gandhi
Ronald Bergan guardian.com

Stephen Lloyd obituary
Lawyer who helped to modernise the charity sector and conceived the idea of the community interest company
David Brindle guardian.com