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Iconic Hollywood actress Lauren Bacall dies from stroke aged 89

Legendary American actress Lauren Bacall, who hypnotised the world from the moment she burst onto the silver screen in the 1940s, has died at the age of 89.

"A family member tells us Bacall had a massive stroke Tuesday morning at her home," entertainment website TMZ reported.

Bacall's death was confirmed by the estate of the Bogart family on Twitter.

Bacall was married to Humphrey Bogart from 1945 until his death in 1957.

They appeared together in several films, including The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948).

She made How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck.

Bacall received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for 1996's The Mirror Has Two Faces.

In 2009, Bacall received an honorary award from the Academy "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures".

Bacall also worked in musicals on Broadway, winning Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981.

Bacall was married to Jason Robards from 1961 until 1969.

She had two children with Bogart and one with Robards.

Richard Attenborough dies aged 90

Richard Attenborough, one of Britain's best known actors and film directors, has died aged 90.

In a career spanning more than six decades, Lord Attenborough appeared in dozens of films including World War II classic The Great Escape, the dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park and period drama Elizabeth.

The older brother of renowned documentary maker David won two Academy Awards as producer and director of 1983's Ghandi.

Born in Cambridge in August 1923, Attenborough made his big screen debut in 1942 with In Which We Serve, the Noel Coward-David Lean tribute to the Royal Navy at war, and appeared in more than 60 films over the next 50 years.

The clean-cut young Attenborough became a regular feature in the cheerful, stiff-upper-lip cinema of the post-war years, but he achieved greater distinction in murkier roles, particularly as the villain Pinkie in the 1947 adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock.

By the 1960s he had come to the attention of Hollywood and obtained regular character roles in such as films as John Sturges's war epic The Great Escape and Robert Aldrich's Flight Of The Phoenix.

He had also acquired a taste for production, forming his own company with Bryan Forbes to make The Angry Silence and other social realist films such as Forbes's own The L-Shaped Room.

In 1962 Attenborough was approached by an associate of the family of Mahatma Gandhi about making a film about the life of the founder of independent India.

Although he had no familiarity with the subject or with India, he met Pandit Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi the following year.

It would take another two decades for the project to be realised - by 1980 Attenborough had secured the money and Gandhi became his biggest success.

The 1982 film won eight Oscars, including best director and best actor for Ben Kingsley, five Golden Globes and five British Academy of Film and Television Art (BAFTA) awards.

Attenborough stayed behind the camera throughout the 1980s, but was enticed back onto the big screen by for Steven Spielberg's dinosaur blockbuster Jurassic Park in 1993 and its sequel.

In 1994, he played Santa Claus in the family drama Miracle On 34th Street, and supporting roles in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth followed later.

As he passed 80, Attenborough slowed down but kept working, including writing his memoirs, Entirely Up To You, Darling, with close friend Diana Hawkins.

Lord Attenborough had been living in a nursing home with his wife Sheila for a number of years.

He had been confined to a wheelchair since falling down stairs six years ago.

A member of the House of Lords, he was also tireless in his charity work, including as a goodwill ambassador to UNICEF, was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and life president of Chelsea football club.

A man with strong family ties, he married his wife at 21, and lived in the same house for five decades in south-west London, an area that was also home to his brother David, the famous naturalist and wildlife presenter.

But tragedy struck in 2004 when one of Lord Attenborough's three children, Jane Holland, and her daughter Lucy died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Famously open with his emotions, he said he never quite got over their deaths.

Outside the world of movies, Lord Attenborough was a lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club and was made life president in 2008 after serving as a director since 1969.

Alvin Stardust dies aged 72 after short illness

Alvin Stardust, the quiffed, leather-clad pop singer best known for 1970s hits such as My Coo Ca Choo, has died aged 72 after a short illness, his manager has said.

The singer, who later enjoyed success in musicals, had been due to release his first album in 30 years next month. He was recently diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and died at home in West Sussex with his wife and family around him, it was announced.

His manager, Andy Davies, said: “Alvin and I had only started working together over the last couple of years because he and I believed that, musically, he still had a great deal to give and explore, and so we recorded an album that is a testament to an artist who gave his career to music.

“I may not have known him long but even in that short time he proved to be one of the most genuine and likeable men I’ve ever met. His passing is a huge and sad loss.”

Born Bernard Jewry in north London in 1942, Stardust’s introduction to pop success was sudden and bizarre. As a teenager in Mansfield, where he grew up, he became a friend and occasional road crew member for a young rock group, Shane Fenton and the Fentones. The band had sent off a series of demo tapes before the titular Shane, in real life 16-year-old Johnny Theakstone, suddenly died of a heart condition caused by a childhood illness.

The band broke up, but when a letter arrived from the BBC asking them to record a demo, Theakstone’s parents asked Jewry to join a reformed group as Shane Fenton in tribute to their son. They won a record deal and in 1961 had a first hit, I’m a Moody Guy.

The band had some intermittent chart success, but interest waned, and by 1970 Jewry was living in Liverpool with his wife and baby son when he received a summons from Michael Levy, the pop impresario who, as Lord Levy, was later a close friend of Tony Blair.

A songwriter for Levy’s record label, Peter Shelley, had written My Coo Ca Choo and wanted a distinctive performer to front it. Between them the pair created the Alvin Stardust name and persona, dressing their charge in leather and telling him to appear mean and surly, as a counterpoint to the glam image popular at the time.

According to a subsequent article by Levy, while Stardust could sing well it was actually Shelley’s voice used on the recording of the first hit.

According to Stardust’s official web biography, he had to hurriedly dye his hair black before an initial Top of the Pops appearance, in the process staining his hands and necessitating the leather gloves which became a key part of his look.

After My Coo Ca Choo, the singer had a 1974 No 1 hit with Jealous Mind, and enjoyed more than a dozen hits into the 1980s. Despite his initially menacing image, Stardust attracted a big following among young people and later fronted a popular road safety advertisement.

He later took a number of roles in musical theatre, including as the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and on television shows including Hollyoaks and Doctors.

Stardust had been due to release his first album since 1984, called Alvin, at the start of November.

Phillip Hughes dies from head injury at age 25

Phillip Hughes has died in hospital two days after he was hit by a bouncer at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Tributes for the former Test batsman have been pouring in, with Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland saying that "the word tragedy gets used too often in sport, but this freak accident is now real-life tragedy".

In an emotional press conference at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, Australian captain Michael Clarke read a statement from Hughes's family in which they said they were "devastated".

"Cricket was Phillip's life and we as a family shared that love of the game with him ... we love you," Clarke said on their behalf.

Mr Sutherland said "Phillip Joel Hughes played 26 Test matches for his country. He will be sadly missed, and forever remembered".

Australian team doctor Peter Brukner said in a statement released by Cricket Australia on Thursday afternoon that Hughes had died at St Vincent's Hospital.

"He never regained consciousness following his injury on Tuesday," he said.

Too young. So sad. Vale.