Deaths of note from around the world:
Eric Lomax, 93: British army officer who was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and endured horrific conditions while being forced to help build the infamous Burma-to-Siam railroad, then later wrote “The Railway Man," a 1996 memoir about his experiences and how he came to forigve his captors. Died Monday in Berwick-upon-Tweed in northern England.
Turhan Bey, 90: Actor whose exotic good looks earned him the nickname of “Turkish Delight" in films with Errol Flynn and Katherine Hepburn before he decided to abandon Hollywood for a quieter life in Vienna. Died in the Austrian capital on Sept. 30 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease.
Budd Lynch, 95: Longtime public address announcer for the Detroit Red Wings, who, after 63 years on the job, was the longest-tenured employee in team history. As a major in the Essex Scottish Regiment, Lynch lost his right arm in a rocket attack after the D-Day invasion. Died Tuesday at a Detroit-area rehabilitation center after a brief illness.
BC-EU--Austria-Obit-Turhan Bey, 1st Ld-Writethru,320
1940s Hollywood actor dies in Austria
AP Photo LON118
reldate(2012-10-09T20:50:34
Eds: Adds details, photo, byline.
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press
VIENNA (AP) — Turhan Bey, an actor whose exotic good looks earned him the nickname of “Turkish Delight" in films with Errol Flynn and Katherine Hepburn before he left Hollywood for a quieter life in Vienna, has died. He was 90.
Marita Ruiter, who exhibited Bey’s photos in her Luxembourg gallery, told the Austria Press Agency on Tuesday that Bey died in the Austrian capital on Sept. 30 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease and was cremated on Monday.
While celebrated for supporting roles alongside Flynn, Hepburn, John Wayne, Peter Lorre and other film greats of the 1940s, friends described Bey as a modest, unassuming man who never bragged of his ties with the stars of the era.
“He was a man brimming with humor, with plenty of aplomb and self-irony, and was very popular," Ruiter was quoted as saying. “He wasn’t the kind who cared a lot about honors."
Born in Austria as Gilbert Selahettin Schultavey, the son of a Turkish diplomat, Bey assumed his stage name shortly after moving to the United States with his Jewish Czech mother from Vienna to escape the Nazis and being discovered by talent scouts from Warner Bros. studios.
His popular name was “Turkish Delight" — a reference to his suave good looks that made him an ideal partner to exotics like Maria Montez in escapist Technicolor adventure fantasies set in faraway places.
He starred or had major roles alongside the big stars of the era in films such as “A Night in Paradise," “Out of the Blue," and “The Amazing Mr. X" until the popularity of the genre faded in the 1950s.
Moving back to Vienna, he made living as a photographer and occasional stage director, again returning after a brief film and television comeback in the 1990s that earned him an Emmy nomination for his performance as the venerable Turval in the “Babylon 5" space fantasy TV series.
Funeral arrangements were not announced.
