Page 7 - Johnj Oconnor News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

A survivor of a crippling accident, his documentaries and news coverage for public television focused on poverty, race and other social issues.

The series, about a Vietnam War hospital, was just one vehicle for him in his writing career to explore war and its aftershocks.

Gavin MacLeod, who became one of the most beloved faces on TV as a wisecracking TV news writer on ’The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ and then as the amiable skipper of ’The Love Boat’, died at his home in California.

Earlier, he was the acerbic TV news writer Murray Slaughter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Cicely Tyson, the stage, screen and television actress whose vivid portrayals of strong African-American women shattered racial stereotypes in the dramatic arts of the 1970s, propelling her to stardom and fame as an exemplar for civil rights, died on Thursday. She was 96. Her death was announced by her longtime manager, Larry Thompson, who provided no other details. In a remarkable career of seven decades, Ms. Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people. She urged Black colleagues to do the same, and often went without work. She was critica...