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Peter Graves, star of the television series Mission: Impossible and the Airplane! films, is dead at the age of 83.

Peter Graves, the tall, stalwart actor best known for his portrayal of Jim Phelps in the long-running television series Mission: Impossible, died on Sunday.

Graves died of an apparent heart attack outside his Los Angeles home, publicist Sandy Brokaw said. He would have been 84 this week.

Graves had just returned from brunch with his wife and children and collapsed before he made it into the house, Brokaw said.
Peter Graves ... died after brunch with family.

Peter Graves ... died after brunch with family. Photo: AP

One of his daughters administered CPR but was unable to revive him.

Graves's family doctor visited the house and believed he had a heart attack, Brokaw said.

Graves had a number of memorable roles in both films and television, including a starring role in the Australian western TV series Whiplash, in which he played Christopher Cobb, the principal of Cobb & Co coach lines.

Normally cast as a hero, he turned in an unforgettable performance early in his career as the treacherous Nazi spy in Billy Wilder's 1953 prisoner-of-war drama Stalag 17.

He also masterfully lampooned his straight-arrow image when he portrayed bumbling airline pilot Clarence Oveur in the 1980 disaster movie spoof Airplane!, which was released in Australia as Flying High.

Graves appeared in dozens of films and a handful of television shows in a career of nearly 60 years.

The authority and trust he projected made him a favourite for commercials late in his life, and he was often encouraged to go into politics.

"He had this statesmanlike quality," Brokaw said. "People were always encouraging him to run for office. But he said, 'I like acting. I like being around actors.'"

Graves's career began with cheaply-made films such as It Conquered the World, in which he battled a carrot-shaped monster from Venus, and Beginning of the World, in which he fought a giant grasshopper.

He later took on equally formidable human villains each week in Mission: Impossible.

Every show began with Graves, as agent Phelps, listening to a tape of instructions outlining his team's latest mission and explaining that if he or any of his agents were killed or captured "the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions".

The tape always self-destructed within seconds of being played.

The show ran from 1967 to 1973 and was revived from 1988 to 1990 with Graves back as the only original cast member.

The actor credited clever writing for the show's success.

"It made you think a little bit and kept you on the edge of your seat because you never knew what was going to happen next," he once said.

He also played roles in such films as John Ford's The Long Gray Line and Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter, as well as The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, Texas Across the River and The Ballad of Josie.

Graves's first television series was a children's Saturday morning show, Fury, about an orphan and his untamed black stallion. Filmed in Australia, it lasted six years.

Whiplash, also shot in Australia, played for a year in syndication in the mid- to late 1950s.

Born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, Graves adopted his grandfather's last name to avoid confusion with his older brother, actor James Arness, who dropped the "u" from the family name.

James Arness is best known for his role as Marshal Matt Dillon in TV's Gunsmoke.

Graves married his college sweetheart, Joan Endress, in 1950 and had three daughters - Kelly Jean, Claudia King and Amanda Lee - and six grandchildren.

AP

Robert Culp dies

No doubt, a B grade actor, in my mind. However, I remember him from many, many, shows, and "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (with Natalie Wood, and Dyan Cannon, in lingerie ).

I guess I am showing my age.

RIP Robert Culp.

Lady Sonia McMahon, widow of former Australian prime minister Sir William McMahon, has died at the age of 77.

Lady McMahon died in Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital last night after suffering cancer for some time.

She had been readmitted to hospital last month suffering from fluid in her lungs.

Born Sonia Hopkins in Sydney in 1932, Lady McMahon worked as an occupational therapist and married Billy McMahon - 24 years her senior - in 1965.

In 1971 Lady McMahon made front page news when she wore a revealing dress slit up the sides to a dinner with her husband and United States president Richard Nixon at the White House.

She said of the incident: "Well there are worse things I could be remembered for, I guess."

"We used to go to continuous dinners and have to wear long dresses and I got so sick of all those ordinary sort of dresses that I thought 'oh, I can't stand it any more', and so this was a light relief."

The Washington Post called the dress one of the most talked-about items ever to be worn to the White House.

Lady McMahon was a vivacious Sydney socialite.

She was a board member and patron of many charities, and served as a director of the Brain Foundation.

Lady McMahon is survived by her three children - two daughters and a son - the Hollywood-based actor Julian McMahon.

Former Sex Pistols manager and pop culture pioneer Malcolm McLaren died on Thursday at his home in New York after a battle with cancer, his spokesman said.

The 64-year-old's condition had suddenly worsened, said spokesman Les Molloy, adding that his family were "devastated... He had been doing very well, it's a sad day. I have spoken to his partner," he said.

McLaren was a leading figure in the punk rock scene. As well as the outrageous Sex Pistols, who spearheaded British punk rock, he managed other bands including the New York Dolls and Bow Wow Wow.

Molloy described him as "one of the 10 most important figures in world music".

"With Malcolm's genius, he took what youth culture was doing at the time and cracked it wide open," he told Sky News television. "I think that did a lot for everyone at that time, and it was a tonic for the nation.

"Let's not forget, he had a very successful career as a recording artist himself, and he was inspirational in bringing hip-hop and rap over to the UK," he added.

McLaren's body was to be flown back to Britain, and buried in London's Highgate cemetery, British media reported.

McLaren was a former partner of flamboyant British designer Vivienne Westwood and the couple set up a clothes shop on London's King's Road in the 1970s, which they renamed Sex and sold rubber and leather fetish gear.

They had a son, Joseph Corre, the co-founder of lingerie shop Agent Provocateur.

McLaren began to manage The Strand, who would later become The Sex Pistols, in 1975. He soon transformed the group, bringing Johnny Rotten on board as frontman after spotting him sporting torn clothes and green hair.

The band released God Save the Queen in 1977, and later that year the album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

They played their last British gig and then set off on a tour of the US at the start of 1978. But they fell out and ultimately split during the tour, with the band accusing McLaren of mismanaging them.

Music journalist Jon Savage, who wrote England's Dreaming, the award-winning history of the Sex Pistols and punk, said: "Without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk."

"He's one of the rare individuals who had a huge impact on the cultural and social life of this nation."

Savage said McLaren was "extremely evasive" when he tried to get information for England's Dreaming.

Eventually McLaren did give what Savage described as an "extremely good interview" about his early life which, despite his tendency to mythologise, "told some kind of truth".

AFP