Say it isn't so... the once amazing Whitney Houston has died at age 48 of causes that are not yet being reported, as publicist Kristen Foster has confirmed to the AP. more ›

The great Etta James has died, ladies and gentlemen, at the age of 73. She was a tough, loud, dirty old broad who brought some much needed sex into the sounds of the early 60s with songs like "Something's Got a Hold on Me," "I Just Want to Make Love to You," and "I'd Rather Go Blind." Her signature song, "At Last," has become a wedding standard. And now she has passed on. more ›

Local billionaire and philanthropist Warren Hellman has died at age 77. The cause was complications from leukemia. He's well loved of course for creating and bankrolling the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, and fear not, it will continue on without him thanks to an endowment he created for that purpose. But Hellman should also be thanked for funding the San Francisco Free Clinic, spearheading City pension reform, creating the Bay Citizen, and building that underground parking garage in Golden Gate Park between the DeYoung and Academy of Sciences. more ›

24-year-old skater Peter Starrs has been identified as the victim in a fatal motorcycle accident that occurred near the 101-80 connector ramp in S.F. early Saturday. According to the CHP (via the Appeal), Starrs crashed at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday and was ejected from the bike, thrown off the highway onto surface streets below. No other vehicles were involved. more ›

Beloved local legend Vicki Marlane died this morning at 7 a.m. of an undisclosed illness. She was 76. Nicknamed "The Lady With the Liquid Spine" for her trademark, sultry flexibility while lip syncing, Marlane was profiled in the New York Times two years ago, and was thought to be the oldest, continuously performing, transgender performer in the country. Until recently, she performed twice weekly at Aunt Charlie's Lounge often doing three or four numbers (and costume changes) each night. more ›

We'd like to bring your attention to an obituary of particular local importance: Catherine "Kay" Kerr, wife of a one-time chancellor at UC Berkeley and co-founder of the early environmental activism group Save the Bay, died last month at the age of 99. She was educated at Stanford, and in 1961 she used her influence as a chancellor's wife to start the grassroots organization, which successfully lobbied to get the McAteer-Petris Act passed in 1965, which placed a moratorium on filling in the bay. ABC 7 speaks with documentary filmmaker Ron Blatman about Kerr's pioneering work, which took place at a time before environmental preservation was anywhere near a political priority. more ›

Patricia Cody, who with her husband Fred co-founded Cody's Books in Berkeley in 1956, died Thursday at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. She was 87. more ›

We don't know the full details just yet, but we'd heard that former child star Gary Coleman was hospitalized in Utah after falling in his home, and he has now died at the age of 42 of an intercranial hemorrhage. Here, People has an obituary, which they'd obviously been preparing just in case. Above, in lieu of Keyboard Cat playing him off, we give you this swell YouTube tribute. more ›

August Coppola, who served as dean of the College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State and who created the famed Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium, died last week at his home in Los Angeles and the obit is just running today. The cause was a heart attack and August, brother to Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire and father to Nicholas Cage, was 75 years old. more ›