In memoriam: Remembering those we've lost in 2024
Beloved actress Janet Andrewartha, best known for playing popular Neighbours character Lyn Scully, died at the age of 72.
Neighbours announced the news on July 28 in a post on Facebook, saying everyone was "deeply saddened" by her death.
"Our thoughts are with Janet's family and loved ones at this time," the show said on social media.
Abdul "Duke" Fakir, the last surviving original member of the beloved Motown group the Four Tops has died at age 88.
Fakir died Monday of heart failure at his home in Detroit, according to a family spokesperson, with his wife and other loved ones by his side.
"Duke was first tenor — smooth, suave, and always sharp," Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a statement.
The Four Tops were among Motown's most popular and enduring acts, peaking in the 1960s.
Between 1964 and 1967, they had 11 top 20 hits and two No. 1's: "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" and the operatic classic "Reach Out I'll Be There."
The Four Tops are pictured here after they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 - from left, Renaldo "Obie" Benson; Levi Stubbs; Abdul "Duke" Fakir, and Lawrence Payton.
Albert S Ruddy, a colourful, Canadian-born producer and writer who won Oscars for The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, developed the raucous prison-sports comedy The Longest Yard and helped create the hit sitcom Hogan's Heroes, has died at age 94.
Ruddy died "peacefully" Saturday at the UCLA Medical Center, according to a spokesperson, who added that among his final words were, "The game is over, but we won the game."
Tall and muscular, with a raspy voice and a city kid's swagger, Ruddy produced more than 30 movies and was on hand for the very top and very bottom, from The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby to Cannonball Run II and Megaforce, nominees for Golden Raspberry awards for worst movie of the year.
Born in Montreal in 1930, Albert Stotland Ruddy moved to the US as a child and was raised in New York City. After graduating from the University of Southern California, he was working as an architect when he met TV actor Bernard Fein in the early 1960s.
The two developed Hogan's Heroes together before Ruddy pivoted to film.
During production of The Godfather, Ruddy personally undertook the studio's diplomatic overtures to organised crime, who were furious about the production. He ultimately received approval from underworld boss Joe Colombo after agreeing to remove the word "mafia" from the film.
Ruddy was married to Wanda McDaniel, a sales executive and liaison for Giorgio Armani who helped make the brand omnipresent in Hollywood, whether in movies or at promotional events. They had two children.
Arthur L. Irving, one of Canada's richest people and the son of Canadian industrialist KC Irving, has died at the age of 93 after a life spent growing the oil business his father founded.
Irving Oil has announced Arthur's death in a statement, saying he died on Monday, May 13 while with his wife Sandra, and daughter Sarah.
Forbes Magazine listed Arthur Irving as being among the top 10 richest Canadians in 2023.
At the time of his death, he had an estimated net worth of US$6.4 billion ($9.7 billion), which includes a refinery in New Brunswick that is Canada's largest, along with the Whitegate refinery in Ireland.
Bestselling UK author CJ Sansom has died aged 71 after a years-long battle with cancer.
Sansom is best known for his historical crime novels featuring the Tudor-era lawyer and investigator Matthew Shardlake, of which seven have been published.
"An intensely private person, Chris wished from the very start only to be published quietly and without fanfare," his editor and publisher, Maria Rejt, said.
"But he always took immense pleasure in the public's enthusiastic responses to his novels and worked tirelessly on each book, never wanting to disappoint a single reader."
Sansom was born in 1952 in Edinburgh. He had a doctorate in history and trained as a solicitor before becoming a full-time writer.
In 2022 he won the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger Award for his outstanding contribution to the genre. The association called him the "modern master of the historical thriller, regardless of periods".
Sansom's death comes just days before the May premiere of a Disney+ television adaptation of his first Shardlake novel, Dissolution. Titled Shardlake, the show stars Arthur Hughes as the eponymous lawyer, and Sean Bean as historical figure Thomas Cromwell.
Terry Hill
Former Australian rugby league international Terry Hill died from a sudden heart attack at the age of 52 on April 24.
In a career that ran from 1990 to 2003, Hill played 246 first-grade games for Manly, South Sydney, Easts, and the Wests Tigers.
He also represented both his state and country, playing in 14 State of Origin matches for NSW and nine Tests for Australia.
After retiring, Hill continued to be one of the game's more prominent colourful characters, starring in The Footy Show on Channel Nine.
Hill is understood to have suffered a massive heart attack in the Philippines while raising money for an orphanage.
Peter Higgs
Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called "God particle" that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, died at the age of 94, on April 8.
The University of Edinburgh in Scotland,, where Higgs was emeritus professor, said he "peacefully at home following a short illness."
Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle — the so-called Higgs boson — in 1964. But it would be almost 50 years before the particle's existence could be confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider.
Higgs' theory related to how subatomic particles that are the building blocks of matter get their mass. This theoretical understanding is a central part of the so-called Standard Model, which describes the physics of how the world is constructed.
He won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, alongside Francois Englert of Belgium, who independently came up with the same theory.
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