Jonathan Harris, 87, the flamboyantly fussy actor who portrayed the dastardly, cowardly antagonist Dr. Zachary Smith on the 1960s sci-fi show Lost in Space, died Sunday of a blood clot in his heart while receiving therapy for a chronic back problem at a hospital near Encino, Calif.
Born Jonathan Charasuchin in the Bronx to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Mr. Harris adopted the stage persona of a classically trained British actor with his grandiloquent accent, crisp enunciation and professorial manner.
When people would ask him if he was from England, Mr. Harris would confess: "'Oh no, my dear, just affected,'" said family spokesman Kevin J. Burns, a longtime friend and director of the 1998 documentary Lost in Space Forever.
Mr. Harris also worked with Pixar Animation Studios in recent years, supplying the voice of Manny the praying-mantis magician in A Bug's Life and the elderly doll repairman in Toy Story 2.
Lost in Space, which ran on CBS from 1965 to 1968, was a sci-fi takeoff on the Swiss Family Robinson story in which the castaway clan was trapped amid the uncharted fathoms of space instead of on a deserted island.
Mr. Harris' character was a saboteur who caused the Robinson family's ship, Jupiter II, to fly off course -- but he also found himself trapped with them in the craft.
Lonnie Donegan, 71, a musician whose "skiffle" sound inspired John Lennon and Pete Townsend to learn to play guitar, died Sunday in Peterborough, central England, while on a tour of Britain. He had suffered several heart attacks.
Mr. Donegan's hits included "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (on the Bedpost Overnight)," "My Old Man's A Dustman" and "Rock Island Line." But he may have been more important to British music for inspiring young talents to imitate and then eclipse his success.
Skiffle music, which Mr. Donegan introduced to Britain in the 1950s, was a mixture of styles that traced its roots to 1920s America, blending jug band, acoustic, folk, blues, and country and western styles.
"Rock Island Line" inspired two young Liverpudlians, John Lennon and George Harrison, to take up the guitar. And Pete Townsend, The Who's windmilling guitar player, started out as leader of the skiffle group The Detours.
Mr. Donegan was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, one of Britain's highest honors, in 2000.
George Salyer, 101, who set two skydiving records, the first on his 91st birthday, died Sunday in a house fire in Everett, Wash.
Born in 1901, Mr. Salyer was a lifelong machinist who helped design and build tools at the Boeing Co. until he retired in the 1960s.
He owned 17 planes during his lifetime but didn't begin skydiving until his 88th birthday. After that he became an avid jumper, observing each birthday with a jump from about 12,000 feet until two or three years ago.
With his birthday jump June 18, 1992, he became the oldest male tandem skydiver in the world.
Nicholas J. Bua, 77, a federal judge who issued a ruling that limited the system of political hiring in Cook County and Chicago government, died there Friday of leukemia.
In the mid-1970s, Judge Bua was assigned a lawsuit filed by attorney Michael Shakman, who challenged the patronage hiring system of the Democratic Party in Chicago. In 1979, he entered a summary judgment that the city's patronage hiring practices violated civil and voting rights. In 1983, he entered a judgment that effectively blocked the city and county from hiring most employees for political reasons.
He retired from the bench in 1991 to pursue private practice.
Barbara Berjer, 82, a former Broadway actress who starred in television soap operas for four decades, including 11 years as Bridget Connell in Another World, died of pneumonia Oct. 20 on a trip to New York.
A Seattle native who changed her name from Berger to reflect the correct pronunciation, she began her acting career as a drama student at the University of Washington.
Moving to New York in 1956, she had leading roles in The Best Man by Gore Vidal, a play about John F. Kennedy, and in Dylan, based on the life of Dylan Thomas, in which she costarred with Alec Guinness in 1964.
She started working in daytime TV when soaps were aired live in the 1950s, appearing in Guiding Light, The Edge of Night and As the World Turns.