Obituaries in the news

Donald Baim

NATICK, Mass (AP) - Dr. Donald Baim, a renowned cardiologist and medical device executive, died Friday following surgery to treat a form of cancer, his family said in a statement. He was 60.

Baim had undergone recent surgery to remove diseased tissue caused by adrenal cancer, a rare form of the disease that attacks the adrenal glands.

Baim, a former Harvard medical school professor, most recently served as chief medical officer for Boston Scientific Corp., a leading manufacturer of pacemakers, defibrillators and other implants. He joined the company in 2006.

Boston Scientific Chief Executive Ray Elliot called Baim, a pioneer in the development of interventional cardiology.

Baim joined Harvard Medical School in 1981 and established the interventional cardiology program at Beth Israel medical center, a teaching hospital for Harvard students. The program specialized in training surgeons to use new medical devices, including stents. The mesh-metal tubes are used to prop open arteries after they have been cleared of fatty plaque.

Baim edited the standard medical textbook for using the devices.

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Nick Counter

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nick Counter, a longtime negotiator for Hollywood producers who led the studios through two grueling writers' strikes last year and in 1988, has died. He was 69.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers says Counter died at a Los Angeles hospital on Friday.

Counter served as the group's president for 27 years and negotiated more than 300 collective bargaining agreements with entertainment industry guilds and unions on behalf of movie studios, television networks and independent producers.

Current AMPTP President Carol Lombardini says Counter's ability to find consensus at the bargaining table led to a sustained era of labor peace.

His family says he was most proud of his work with the industry health and pension plans.

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Art D'Lugoff

NEW YORK (AP) - Art D'Lugoff, whose famed New York City nightclub, the Village Gate, featured performers from jazz great Duke Ellington to 1960s counterculture rocker Jimi Hendrix, has died at age 85, his brother said.

D'Lugoff, who lived in the Bronx, died Wednesday at a Manhattan hospital. His brother, Dr. Burt D'Lugoff, said an autopsy was performed Friday to determine the cause of death.

D'Lugoff hired blacklisted singers Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger and fired Dustin Hoffman as a waiter. Hoffman, then a struggling actor, later said he was so distracted by the performers that he neglected customers.

D'Lugoff booked jazz greats John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk and standup comics Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. Hendrix and Jim Morrison performed at a 1970 benefit the club hosted for counterculture icon Timothy Leary, a proponent of LSD experimentation.

Music lovers flocked to the Village Gate from 1958, when D'Lugoff opened the Greenwich Village club, until it closed in 1994.

He was born on Aug. 2, 1924, and raised in New York City. After serving in the Army Air Forces in China during World War II, D'Lugoff graduated with a bachelor's degree from New York University.

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Manuel Solis

PANAMA CITY (AP) - Manuel Solis, who served briefly as president during Manuel Noriega's military regime, died Friday. He was 91.

Solis died at his home from respiratory failure, said Mitchell Doens, the secretary general of the Democratic Revolutionary Party to which Solis belonged.

Solis served as education minister during the military regime dominated by Noriega and then was named acting president in February 1988 after President Eric Arturo Del Valle was fired. He ruled until Sept. 1, 1989.

Doens said Solis fought for Panama's sovereignty and led the movement in the 1940s against U.S. military presence in the Central American country, where the U.S. built and ran the Panama Canal for generations.

His brief term as president ended with the U.S. invasion that ousted Noriega.

Solis went on to serve as education minister from 2004-2009 in Martin Torrijos' administration.