Howard Zieff, 81, a film and television-commercial director whose works included “Private Benjamin” and “My Girl,” died Sunday of Parkinson’s disease in Los Angeles, said his wife, Ronda Gomez-Quinones.
“What I remember and cherish most was his humor and love of laughter,” actress Goldie Hawn, who received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her role in “Private Benjamin” in 1980, said in a statement.
Zieff is also credited with helping to change the face of American commercials in the 1960s with witty slice-of life vignettes, such as his “Spicy Meatball” spot for Alka-Seltzer.
Born in Chicago in 1927, Zieff worked his way up from a job as a photo assistant to become an influential commercial photographer on Madison Avenue.
Wilbert A. Tatum, 76, retired publisher of the New York Amsterdam News, the Harlem-based newspaper that has covered the city’s black community for a century, died during a trip to Croatia, the newspaper said Thursday. The cause of death was not given.
Tatum, born in New York on Jan. 23, 1933, held degrees from Lincoln University and Occidental College, served in the Marines and was a longtime community activist, businessman and journalist. He was a member of a group that purchased the Amsterdam News in 1971. One of 50 black newspapers in the United States when it was founded in December 1909, it marks its centennial this year.
