ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) – Comedian and talk show host Alebachew Teka, one of Ethiopia’s top television stars, was killed when his car plunged into a ravine, police and friends said Monday. He was 43. More than 60,000 mourners attended Alebachew’s funeral here Monday.

Alebachew rose to prominence during the 1980s for a satirical television show that was a huge hit under the brutal rule of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. But it was his successful series “The Alebe Show” that brought him widespread fame. In the talk show, Alebachew would persuade rich guests to pledge money to help the destitute.

—

Virginia Mayo

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Virginia Mayo, whose honey blonde hair and creamy, flawless face had made her ideal for the Technicolor musicals, westerns and adventures so popular in the 1940s and ‘50s, died Monday at a nursing home in suburban Thousand Oaks following a year of declining health. She was 84.

Rising from chorus girl to feature film star almost overnight, Mayo went on to appear opposite many of the most popular actors of her time, including James Cagney, Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, George Raft, Danny Kaye, Ronald Reagan, Rex Harrison, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.

Although many of her films were light escapist fare, she landed two solid dramatic roles – in 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives” and 1949’s “White Heat” – and made the most of both of them.

“I still think she should have won an Academy Award, or at least a nomination, for ‘The Best Years of Our Lives,”‘ casting director and longtime family friend Marvin Paige said of the film that cast Mayo as the two-timing wife of Dana Andrews’ returning World War II soldier.

—

Nell Rankin

NEW YORK (AP) – Nell Rankin, a mezzo-soprano who sang with the Metropolitan Opera for more than two decades and performed in such marquee roles as Carmen and Amneris in Verdi’s “Aida,” has died. She was 81.

Rankin, who suffered from a rare bone marrow disease, died Thursday, her husband, Hugh Davidson, said Monday.

Born in Montgomery, Ala., Rankin earned money for her studies at the Birmingham Conservatory of Music by teaching swimming lessons, according to the Web site of the Alabama Academy of Honor, which inducted her as a member in 1976.

Rankin moved to New York for further training and performed at Town Hall in 1947. She made her opera debut in 1949 as Ortrud in Wagner’s “Lohengrin” in Zurich, Switzerland.

Rankin’s career took off internationally after she became the first American singer to win first prize at the Concours de Musique, a contest in Geneva, in 1950.

—

Ruth Warrick

NEW YORK (AP) – Ruth Warrick, who played the icy first wife of Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane,” a busybody housekeeper on “Peyton Place” and most memorably, Phoebe Tyler Wallingford, an inveterate busybody on “All My Children,” died at her New York home Saturday of complications from pneumonia, ABC-TV said Monday. She was 88.

Warrick was honored last May with a Daytime Emmy Award for lifetime achievement.

Twice nominated for an Emmy for the “All My Children” role, she made her final appearance less than two weeks ago to commemorate the show’s 35th anniversary. She chronicled her story in the 1980 autobiography, “The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler.”

She made her Hollywood debut in 1941 in “Citizen Kane” as Emily Norton Kane. Welles, who co-wrote, directed and starred in the film, hand-picked her for the role of his wife because he said there were no “ladies in Hollywood” who fit the bill.

Warrick later appeared in other movies, including “The Corsican Brothers,” with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and “The Great Bank Robbery” with Zero Mostel. Her Broadway credits include appearances with Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 musical “Irene” and with Jackie Gleason in the 1959 musical “Take Me Along.”

—

Thelma White

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Actress Thelma White, best known for playing a drug addict in “Reefer Madness,” a 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film that resurfaced decades later as a cult classic, has died. She was 94.

She died of pneumonia Jan. 11 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in the city’s Woodland Hills section, said her godson, Michael Homeier.

White played a hard-boiled blond named Mae who peddles “demon weed” to unsuspecting youths in the low-budget cautionary tale written by a religious group about the dangers of marijuana.

A musical and comedy actress who made more than 40 movies with the likes of W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, and others, White was horrified when RKO studios picked her for the film. She had little choice but to accept the role because of her contract.

“I’m ashamed to say that it’s the only one of my films that’s become a classic,” White told The Los Angeles Times in a 1987 interview. “I hide my head when I think about it … a dreadful film.”

Born in 1910, White was a carnival performer as a toddler, progressed to vaudeville, radio and movies, then worked as an agent and producer for many years.

—