Alex Traub

1 month ago | bostonglobe.com | Alex Traub

Greg Cannom, an Oscar-winning movie makeup artist responsible for some of the most striking acts of movie magic in recent decades — including the transformation of Christian Bale into Dick Cheney in “Vice,” the creation of a giant expressive green head for Jim Carrey in “The Mask,” and the reverse aging of Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — died on May 3. He was 73.

1 month ago | miamiherald.com | Alex Traub

In the early 1950s, Andy Cassell, a 9-year-old boy on the Isle of Wight in England, read about the Kon-Tiki expedition, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage across the Pacific Ocean on a primitive raft. Andy began to dream of sailing, although it seemed an unlikely prospect: He had been born with malformed hips and no legs. Still, he built a raft with pine logs he found on the beach, and his grandmother helped by fashioning a sail from a tablecloth and a mast from a clothesline pole.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Alex Traub

He survived the deadliest race in modern yachting history, won the first Paralympic sailing contest and founded a nonprofit for sailors with disabilities. In the early 1950s, Andy Cassell, a 9-year-old boy on the Isle of Wight in England, read about the Kon-Tiki expedition, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's voyage across the Pacific Ocean on a primitive raft. Andy began to dream of sailing, although it seemed an unlikely prospect: He had been born with malformed hips and no legs.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Alex Traub

He starred in one of the westerns that dominated TV in the late 1950s. After losing traction in Hollywood, he became a traveling clown. Will Hutchins, who had a comically genteel starring role during the craze for television westerns in the 1950s, playing a sheriff who favored cherry soda over whiskey on "Sugarfoot," died on April 21 in Manhasset, N.Y., on the North Shore of Long Island. He was 94. The cause was respiratory failure, his wife, Barbara Hutchins, said in a funeral home death notice.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Alex Traub

His ribald one-liners, oddball knowledge and generosity helped define Melon's, an Upper East Side fixture, where he manned the door for decades. New York City maintains a certain lineage of restaurants worthy of the old-fashioned term "saloon." This line began with P.J. Clarke's, named after a turn-of-the-20th-century Irish immigrant. In the 1960s, a Clarke's manager and maître d', Joe Allen, opened a theater district establishment bearing his own name.