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Obituaries

Popular actor who played 'Allo 'Allo cafe owner Rene Artois

Gordon Kaye with Francesca Gonshaw and Vicki Michelle of British sitcom <i>'Allo 'Allo!</i>

Gorden Kaye,  the actor, who has died aged 75, was almost universally known as René Artois, the bumbling café owner and frustrated philanderer in the enormously popular television comedy series 'Allo 'Allo, which was seen in more than 30 countries by an audience of some 200 million viewers.

Zhou Youguang's Pinyin writing system helped modernise China

Zhou Youguang invented the Romanised spelling of Chinese words known as Pinyin.

​Zhou Youguang, a onetime Wall Street banker from China who developed Pinyin, a Romanized writing system that has helped more than 1 billion Chinese and countless foreigners learn to read and write Mandarin, died Jan. 14 in Beijing, one day after celebrating his 111th birthday.

Author knew he had something special with The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty, writer and filmmaker whose work included The Exorcist.

William Peter Blatty was a senior at Georgetown University in 1949 when he heard the extraordinary story that, more than two decades later, would change his life — and scare the devil out of everyone else.

A guitarman, artist and architect

Ben Hall in his workshop fine tuning a guitar, one of his many creative talents.

Ben Hall was an architect and also a recognised painter who could make and play musical instruments, teach classical guitar and design and make houses, furniture and jewellery. In fact Ben Hall's life was packed with creative pursuits. Some might say he attempted too much.

Born to be a newspaper headliner

James Fairfax made numerous gifts to art galleries and was a regular benefactor for many organisations and charities ...

Two murals on the walls of James Fairfax' Bowral home encapsulated his two lives: one of duty, the other of adventure and artistic expression.

In Passing

William Christopher (left) with cast members of M*A*S*H in 1982.

William Christopher, Sister Frances Ann Carr, Lavinia Keppel

GP sought reasons behind illness

Dr Eric Fisher: Incorporated talking therapy into his medical practice.

Interest in medicine emerged at the age of five when his father removed his tonsils and adenoids on the kitchen table under a chloroform anaesthetic.