Obituaries in the news

By The Associated Press

9:42 PM EDT, July 5, 2008

Eric Lieber

LOS ANGELES - Eric Lieber, whose television production credits include the long-running dating show "Love Connection," died Wednesday. He was 71.

Lieber died of leukemia at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said his wife, Peggy.

He created "Love Connection" in 1983 after decades producing other game shows, as well as the talk shows of Dick Cavett, Sammy Davis Jr. and Mike Douglas.

"Love Connection," hosted by Chuck Woolery, aired until 1995. Lieber also was executive producer of the 1998-1999 reprise of the series, hosted by Pat Bullard.

On the program, contestants watched videos of three prospective blind dates, chose one to go out with and returned to the show to talk about the experience.

Lieber attributed the show's success to the real-life drama audiences got to observe.

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Murphy Martin

DALLAS (AP) -- Murphy Martin, a former anchor and reporter for ABC News who covered the Selma voting rights march in 1965, died Thursday. He was 82.

He died after a long illness, just one hour shy of his 83rd birthday, WFAA-TV in Dallas reported on its Web site.

Martin worked at WFAA in the early 1960s and went on to be an anchor and reporter at ABC News in New York. Martin returned to WFAA in the early '70s.

He covered the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while working as a correspondent for ABC in the 1960s and also provided news coverage immediately following the assassination of President Kennedy.

Martin met King while covering a march to integrate beaches at St. Augustine, Fla. He eventually anchored ABC's live network coverage at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965, according to Martin's Web site.

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Thich Huyen Quang

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Thich Huyen Quang, the patriarch of an outlawed Buddhist church in Vietnam who spent more than two decades in and out of house arrest, died Saturday. He was 87.

The leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam died of multiple organ failure a day after being transferred from a hospital to his monastery at his request, said Penelope Faulkner of the International Buddhist Information Bureau in Paris, which speaks for the outlawed church.

An outspoken proponent of religious freedom and human rights, Quang had long been confined to the Nguyen Thieu Monastery in the southern province of Binh Dinh.

The church's deputy leader, Thich Quang Do, 80, broke out of house arrest at his monastery in Ho Chi Minh City to be at Quang's side when the patriarch was hospitalized, Faulkner said. Do held a prayer service after Quang's death and plans to oversee a funeral scheduled for next week, she said.