French director Jacques Deray \ndies at 74 in Paris
PARIS -- French director Jacques Deray, known for classic thrillers and police movies, died at home in a Paris suburb, his family said Sunday. He was 74.\nDeray made nine films starring actor Alain Delon, notably "La Piscine," (The Swimming Pool), a 1968 psychological drama set in a villa in the beach resort of Saint-Tropez. Austrian actress Romy Schneider also appeared in it.\nSuccesses in the 1970s included "Flic Story" (Cop Story) and "Borsalino," which starred Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo and focused on crooks in the bustling southern port city of Marseille.\nDeray's family said Sunday that he died at home in Boulogne-Billancourt overnight. Information on funeral arrangements was not immediately available.
Reporter, author Donovan dies at 90
WASHINGTON -- Robert J. Donovan, a veteran Washington newsman and best-selling author of "PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II," died Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 90.\nDonovan had been on life support since suffering a stroke last week.\nHe played a key role in shaping the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau after then-publisher Otis Chandler pulled him in 1963 from The New York Herald Tribune, the paper that sent him to Washington in 1947.\n"Bob Donovan was a superb individual, a great reporter and a great writer," Chandler said Friday. "He played a major part in rebuilding the Times and putting the Times on the map."\nAmong Donovan's 13 books was "PT-109," an account of President Kennedy's war experiences, published in 1961. The book, which was made into a movie, helped Donovan gain access to the Kennedy White House. \n"Bob's book became a family treasure and he became a family friend," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the former president's brother, recalled Friday. "We'll never forget him."\nBefore the Kennedy book, President Eisenhower's chief of staff had called on Donovan to write a book on his administration's first term. He developed close ties to the Eisenhower White House, but still wrote exclusive news stories that riled the president.\nDonovan got under President Nixon's skin when he wrote about the first withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam in 1969 -- before the president had announced the news.\n"Reporters who worked with Donovan idolized him and were amazed at the speed and clarity with which he wrote articles under deadline pressure," said Jack Nelson, a former Washington bureau chief for the Times. "His nurturing of sources often resulted in behind-the-scenes exclusives that frequently rankled government officials."\nDonovan was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on August 21, 1912. After high school, he took a job as copy boy for the Buffalo Courier Express. Four years later and after repeated tries, he landed a job at the Herald Tribune.\nHe fought in World War II and served with the armed services newspaper, Stars and Stripes. When he returned to the United States, he covered New York's city hall and the United Nations for the Herald Tribune.\nDonovan briefly taught journalism at Princeton University.\nHe is survived by his wife, Gerry Van der Heuval, three children, two stepchildren and six grandchildren.\nThe family asks that memorial donations go to the Harry S. Truman Library Institute in Independence, Mo. Plans are being made for a memorial service in Washington.
Well-known British editor Pickering dies
LONDON -- Sir Edward Pickering, former executive vice chairman of Times Newspapers, the publishers of The Times and The Sunday Times, died Friday. He was 91.\nPickering died in his sleep at home in London, said News International, the umbrella company for Rupert Murdoch's London newspapers.\n"The industry has lost an incomparable institution; our company has lost a guide whose wisdom was drawn upon until the last; I have lost a great mentor and a true friend, a man in whom I placed my unreserved trust for 50 years," said Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp.\nPickering, who was knighted in 1977, served as editor of the Daily Express from 1957 to 1962 at the height of post-war circulation battles.\nIt was then that he met the young Murdoch, and later became a close confidant of the Australian when he returned to build his own media empire.\nEdward Davies "Pick" Pickering was born on May 4, 1912, in Middlesbrough, England, and began work as a reporter there. Later, he worked as a journalist in Newcastle and Manchester before becoming chief sub-editor of the Daily Mail at the age of 26.\nAfter military service in World War II, Pickering returned to the Daily Mail as managing editor, a job he held from 1947 until 1949. He later joined the Daily Express in the same post before becoming editor.\nIn 1964, Pickering joined the Daily Mirror as editorial director, becoming chairman of its newspaper and magazines division and finally chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers from 1975 to 1977.\nIn 1981, Murdoch made Pickering a director of Times Newspapers Holdings, and the following year he became executive vice chairman of Times Newspapers.\nHe is survived by a daughter from his first marriage in 1936 to Margaret Soutter, and also two sons and a daughter from his second marriage in 1955 to Rosemary Whitton.
