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Author Ray Bradbury dead at 91

Ray Bradbury, the American author who helped popularise science fiction with works such as The Martian Chronicles, has died at the age of 91.

The prolific and gregarious Bradbury left a massive body of work, including Fahrenheit 451, a classic novel about book censorship in a future society, and other favourites such as The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

"Mr Bradbury died peacefully, last night, in Los Angeles, after a long illness," a spokesman for his publisher HarperCollins said.

"The world has lost one of the best writers it's ever known, and one of the dearest men to my heart. RIP Ray Bradbury (Ol' Gramps)," his grandson Danny Karapetian said on Twitter.

Millions of Bradbury's books have been sold around the world and his stories translated into dozens of languages.

A child of the Depression born in small-town Illinois, he grew up reading Jules Verne, HG Wells, Edgar Allan Poe and George Bernard Shaw.

As a writer he first made an impact with The Martian Chronicles, a series of stories about Earth colonisers destroying telepathic Martians.

Over his long career there were hundreds of novels, plays, scripts and poetry.

He called himself a 'hybrid' author, ranging across fantasy, horror and science fiction.

His most celebrated work, Fahrenheit 451, was a grim futuristic tale of firemen burning books which the author later called a warning about television destroying interest in literature. The title refers to the temperature at which paper ignites.

The novel, which Bradbury wrote on a rented typewriter at the UCLA library, featured a world that might sound familiar to 21st century readers; wall-sized interactive televisions, earpiece communication systems, omnipresent advertising and political correctness.

"In science fiction, we dream," he told the New York Times.

"In order to colonise in space, to rebuild our cities... to tackle any number of problems, we must imagine the future, including the new technologies that are required...

"Science fiction is also a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present."

The famous American futurist and writer lived in the same house for 50 years, called the internet a distraction, and did not like electronic books.

He was disdainful of automatic teller machines and denounced video games as "a waste of time for men with nothing else to do".

"Two or three years out of high school my stories were terrible, but I had to lie to myself that someday I would become excellent," he said.

"And by gosh, by writing every day, for 20 years, I became excellent."

Bradbury brought not only futuristic vision but a literary sensibility to science fiction and fantasy writing.

His interest in writing began as a boy and even in his later years he liked to write daily - whether it was a novel, a short story, a screenplay or a poem.

"The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me," he said on his 80th birthday.

He long bemoaned the end of manned missions to the Moon and had an asteroid and a lunar crater named after one of his works.

"The problem with the world is doomsayers. We're surrounded by negative people - I can't stand them," he said.

"I've been surrounded by people who never believed in the future. It was true then, it's true today."

His biographer, Sam Weller, said he had a singular, wild American imagination.

"Even until his very late years when he grew much more frail obviously, his energy was still fantastic," he said.

"I think he altered the landscape of fantasy forever. Stephen King said to me once in an interview there is no Stephen King without Ray Bradbury."

Actor Andy Griffith dies at 86

American television star Andy Griffith has died in North Carolina at the age of 86.

Griffith was the star of the 1960s program The Andy Griffith Show, as well as the 1980s legal drama Matlock.

He died at his home on Roanoke Island on Tuesday morning, according to Dare County Sheriff JD Doughtie.

His wife of three decades, Cindi Griffith, was at his bedside and issued a statement saying: "I cannot imagine life without Andy, but I take comfort and strength in God's Grace and in the knowledge that Andy is at peace and with God."

The family said Griffith "has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island," but did not elaborate.

Despite his later success with Matlock, it was the role of Sheriff Andy Taylor on the The Andy Griffith Show in the 1960s that gave him a place in television history.

The show depicted life in the friendly, slow-moving fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, which was widely believed to have been based on Griffith's own hometown, Mount Airy, in that state.

"North Carolina has lost its favourite son," governor Beverly Perdue said.

"Andy Griffith graciously stepped into the living rooms of generations of Americans, always with the playful charm that made him the standard by which entertainers would be measured for decades ... In an increasingly complicated world, we all yearn for the days of Mayberry."

President Barack Obama said he was saddened to hear of Griffith's death.

"A performer of extraordinary talent, Andy was beloved by generations of fans and revered by entertainers who followed in his footsteps," he said in a statement.

There was little crime to fight in Mayberry so the stories centred on the sheriff and his interactions with the quirky townspeople.

"The basic theme of our show was love," Griffith said in a 2003 interview with CNN.

"All the characters loved each other. And all the actors loved each other, too."

The show, a situation comedy, was an entertaining diversion for viewers to the social and political upheavals of the 1960s.

"It was at a point where America was really in turmoil," executive producer John Watkin told USA Today.

"The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry represented in some sense this kind of idealised view of what America was. It contains such a heart, such a sense of community."

Griffith was born June 1, 1926, and had ambitions of being a preacher. At the University of North Carolina he earned a degree in dramatic arts in 1949 and started performing in singing groups.

He first made a name with a comedy recording, What It Was, Was Football, a spoof of a rube trying to follow the action at his first football game. That led to an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and from there Griffith starred in both the stage and film versions of No Time for Sergeants.

He made a big impact as a dramatic actor in his first movie, 1957's A Face in the Crowd, playing a scheming drifter whose aw-shucks persona catapults him to success as a television show host until his dark side was exposed.

Griffith later played a small-town sheriff in a television episode of The Danny Thomas Show, which led to The Andy Griffith Show.

On Broadway, Griffith was nominated for two Tony awards, in 1956 as a featured actor in No Time for Sergeants and in 1960 as an actor in the musical Destry Rides Again.

He often recorded and won a Grammy award for his 1996 gospel album "I Love To Tell The Story."

Griffith spent most of his later years in the Atlantic Coast town of Manteo, North Carolina.

He was married and divorced twice before he wed Cindi Knight Griffith in 1983. He had two children.

Ernest Borgnine, the Oscar-winning actor whose parts ranged from ominous heavies and humble everymen to the buffoonish skipper of a PT boat in the television series "McHale's Navy," has died. He was 95.

Deep Purple founder Jon Lord dies aged 71

British rocker Jon Lord, who founded Deep Purple and co-wrote their most famous song, Smoke On The Water, has died aged 71.

The keyboard player, who had pancreatic cancer, died in London today.

A statement on his website said he had passed "from Darkness to Light".

The statement said Lord was "surrounded by his loving family" when he died.

Last year, Lord told fans he was "fighting cancer and will therefore be taking a break from performing while getting the treatment and cure".

In a message on his website dated August 9, 2011, he added: "I shall of course be continuing to write music - in my world it just has to be part of the therapy - and I fully expect to be back in good shape next year."

Lord started playing the piano in his family home and took classical music lessons before turning to jazz and rock 'n' roll.

He moved to London at 19 to go to drama school, but was soon playing piano in pubs and bars and in 1964 joined cult blues band the Artwoods - formed by Ronnie Wood's brother Art.

The band were critical favourites but never translated that into commercial success and split up.

Lord then went on tour with manufactured psychedelic pop combo The Flowerpot Men, who had scored a hit with Let's Go To San Francisco, before joining Deep Purple in 1968.

The heavy rockers sold more than 100 million albums - many featuring Lord's classically inspired keyboards.

But their most famous song was the simple Smoke On The Water with its trademark riff.

The band split in 1976 and Lord joined bandmate Ian Paice in Paice Ashton Lord before playing with Whitesnake and a reformed Deep Purple.

Darryl Cotton loses battle with cancer

Australian pop star, actor and TV host Darryl Cotton has lost his battle with liver cancer.

Cotton, 62, died in the early hours of Friday after being diagnosed in May.

Friend and former manager Jeff Joseph says the singer fought his condition bravely.

"He was philosophical from the outset when told of his condition, but was determined to fight it until the very end and maintained a very positive attitude," Mr Joseph said.

A founding member of Australian rock group Zoot in the late '60s, where he played with Beeb Birtles and Rick Springfield among others, Cotton headed to Los Angles when the band broke up.

There he wrote songs for artists including Olivia Newton-John and Shaun Cassidy, before returning to Australia in 1978 to pursue a solo career.

His song Same Old Girl was a top ten hit in 1980 before he ventured into acting with a role on the TV soap The Young Doctors. He went on to co-host Saturday morning children's program The Early Bird Show on Channel Ten in the 1980s.

Cotton's illness brought an outpouring of support from well-wishers internationally.

"Darryl was much loved and highly respected by men and women alike, both in and out of the entertainment industry," Mr Joseph said.

Darryl Cotton leaves a wife Cheryl and two children Amy and Tim.