Margaret Pellegrini, 89, one of the original Munchkins from the 1939 classic movie “The Wizard of Oz,” died Wednesday at a Phoenix-area hospital, two days after suffering a stroke at her Glendale, Ariz., home.
With her death, only two of the 124 Munchkins in the movie are alive.
Pellegrini has said she was 16 when “The Wizard of Oz” was filmed. She played one of the “sleepy head” kids and wore a flowerpot on her head in the movie. Later, Pellegrini was a guest speaker at grade schools across the Phoenix metropolitan area for many years.
Barbara Mertz, 85, a best-selling mystery writer who wrote dozens of novels, died Thursday morning at her home, in Frederick, Md., her daughter Elizabeth told her publisher HarperCollins.
Mertz wrote more than 35 mysteries under the pen name Elizabeth Peters, including her most popular series about a daring Victorian archaeologist named Amelia Peabody. She also wrote 29 suspense novels under the pen name Barbara Michaels, and under her own name, she wrote nonfiction books about ancient Egypt.
“Cowboy” Jack Clement, 82, a producer, engineer, songwriter and beloved figure who helped birth rock ‘n’ roll and push country music into modern times, died Thursday at his home in Nashville, Tenn., after declining treatment for liver cancer.
His death came just months after he learned he would be joining the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Clement’s career included stops in Memphis at Sun Records as an engineer for Sam Phillips, where he discovered Jerry Lee Lewis and recorded greats like Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. He also came through Nashville, where he was a close collaborator of Johnny Cash and many of his fellow hall of fame members.
Karen Black, 74, the prolific actress who appeared in more than 100 movies and was featured in such counterculture favorites as “Easy Rider,” “Five Easy Pieces” and “Nashville,” died Wednesday from complications from cancer.
Known for her full lips and thick, wavy hair that seemed to change color from film to film, Black often portrayed women who were quirky, troubled or threatened.
Her breakthrough was as a prostitute who takes LSD with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969’s “Easy Rider.” The hippie classic helped get her the role of Rayette Dipesto, a waitress who dates — and is mistreated by — an upper-class dropout played by Jack Nicholson in 1970’s “Five Easy Pieces,” for which she received an Oscar nomination.
