Obituaries in the news
Fritz Klein
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Dr. Fritz Klein, a psychiatrist who studied bisexuals and their relationships and helped launch a foundation promoting bisexual culture, died May 24 of a heart attack, his partner Tom Reise said. He was 73.
Klein's life work was defined by his belief that sexual orientation is fluid and changes throughout a person's life. Klein believed the number of men who were sexually active with both sexes had been undercounted and unrecognized by the scale developed by Alfred C. Kinsey in the 1940s.
Working at his private psychiatric practice in the 1970s, Klein developed a scale that measured not only sexual experiences, but also sexual attractions, emotional preferences, social preferences, and self-identification pertaining to a person's past, present and ideal future.
Klein organized conferences and support groups for bisexuals in New York and San Diego, and in 1978 wrote "The Bisexual Option," a book that traced a historical overview of bisexuality. He also co-authored "Man, His Body, His Sex," and was an editor of The Journal of Bisexuality.
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William Merritt Steger
TYLER, Texas (AP) -- U.S. District Judge William Merritt Steger, who handled more than 15,000 cases in 35 years on the federal bench, died Sunday in a Tyler hospital, colleagues said. He was 85.
President Eisenhower appointed Steger, who earned his law degree from Southern Methodist University, as a U.S. attorney in 1953. After six years, he returned to private practice. He ran for governor in 1960 and received more than 600,000 votes. He ran an unsuccessful race for Congress in 1962 and then made it to the bench.
Robert Davis, one of the dozens of clerks who served during Steger's career, said Steger was the most honest and ethical men he had ever met. He worked for Steger from 1989 to 1991.
"He is my all-time hero," he said.
Attorney Robert Wilson, another former clerk, said Steger was instrumental in the growth of the Republican Party of Texas. He served as state party chairman from 1969-1970.
"There are so few great men like Judge Steger," he said.
Steger took senior active status in 1987, but still continued to handle a full docket.
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Alex Toth
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Alex Toth, a maverick comic artist who designed classic Hanna Barbera adventure cartoons such as "The Superfriends" and "Space Ghost," died May 27, his son Eric Toth said. He was 77.
Eric Toth said the cause of death had not yet been determined, but his father had been in failing health for years.
Before working in animation, Toth was a comic book artist, widely regarded as brilliant, who had some success but even more frustration.
He rarely held on to an artist job for long because of a simple, subtle drawing style and a stubborn adherence to his artistic principles. And he preferred pirate tales and westerns over the more popular super hero comics.
Toth was born in New York, where he lived and worked until settling in San Jose in the late 1950s. While living there he worked for Dell Comics on titles derived from television shows like "Sea Hunt" and "Zorro." That led to animation work in Southern California, where he moved in 1964.
Drawing for Hanna Barbera in the 1960s and 1970s, Toth designed characters for adventure cartoons "Jonny Quest" and "The Herculoids" in addition to "The Superfriends" and "Space Ghost," and he achieved the wider recognition and commercial success that had eluded him.
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Arthur Widmer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Arthur Widmer, who developed some of the most widely used special effects technology in films and earned an Academy Award last year for lifetime achievement, died May 28 of cancer, his publicist said. He was 92.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Widmer the award for his work in developing Ultra Violet and "blue screen" special effects processes.
Working for Warner Bros. in the 1950s, Widmer developed the Ultra Violet Traveling Matte process, an early version of what would become known as blue screen, in which two different images shot at different times and places could be combined into one.
Widmer left Warner Bros. in 1964 to design and build the optical department for Universal Studios, where he continued the development of blue screen and other visual effects until his retirement in 1979.
