LOS ANGELES (ACNI) - As the world already knows, Michael Jackson, King of Pop, is gone. He succumbed to cardiac arrest on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at his chateau-like Carolwood Drive home in the exclusive Los Angeles enclave of Holmby Hills. He was only 50 years old.

If the first 24 hours following his death are any indication, much will be written about his life, and his death, in the weeks and months to come. The dissection and intense scrutiny of every aspect of his career and unorthodox lifestyle began almost immediately after his death, as quickly assembled panels of medical and legal experts, friends, Jackson family spokesmen and miscellaneous pundits weighed in with their expressions of shock and speculation as to what might have caused the sudden death of the world's most famous contemporary performer.

Many who offered insight on network television described Jackson as a fallen star on the verge of a major comeback after years of dodging the public eye. Reportedly, he had been rehearsing intensely - up to six hours a day - in preparation for a series of 50 sold-out summer shows in London's O2 Arena. But why would he put himself through such an ordeal at the age of 50, an age at which many musicians pull back on touring and start contemplating studio work?

In this writer's opinion, Jackson did not agree to the grueling concert agenda because of any burning desire to return to the spotlight he once captured with such electrifying ease. The father of three young children and a shy person by nature, Jackson had had his fill of celebrity and longed for peace and privacy. It's simple enough to figure out - the reason for the proposed concert series, whose financial backers hoped to follow with a three-year world tour, a new album, films and casino dates in Vegas and Macau, was to raise cash - lots of it.

Money problems had plagued Jackson for years, leaving many to wonder how he could have blown through the estimated $500 million in career royalties amassed from solo recordings and music videos, revenue from concerts, endorsements and music publishing. His lavish, nomadic lifestyle had sent his finances into a downward spiral, insiders said. There simply wasn't enough coming in to cover what was going out. Hence the plan was hatched to revive Jackson's dormant career and get his financial house in order.

Part of the plan involved the sale of Jackson's beloved Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, Calif. - which did take place - followed by a proposed auction of approximately 2,000 personal articles, including gold and platinum records, stage costumes, unique gifts from celebrities and heads of state, a collection of movie memorabilia, and even the luxury coach in which Jackson had traveled while on tour.

The auction series was to have been conducted April 22-25, 2009 at the Beverly Hills Hotel by Julien's Auctions, a highly reputable Hollywood-based company that has organized sales of personal property on behalf of U2, Barbra Streisand, Cher, William Shatner, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne; and the Estates of Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe. A contract was signed and Julien's team commenced with the on-site preparations, conducting an inventory of items to be sold, packing the goods, and transporting them from Neverland to Julien's warehouse.

The original plan was for the Neverland residence to be cleared out within 30 days, auctioneer Darren Julien told Auction Central News in an article published March 10, 2009, but the scope of the operation required an extension to 90 days. On one occasion while working at Neverland, Julien said, he received a phone call from Jackson himself, who expressed his appreciation to the auctioneer.

According to Julien, Dr. Tohme R. Tohme, who represented Jackson's interests throughout the negotiation and planning of the auction, visited Julien's warehouse "many times, probably 50 times" to supervise the lotting and cataloging process. "Our instructions had been to take everything from Neverland," Julien said. "Michael Jackson and Dr. Tohme had already removed what they wanted, so we cleared it out - we took everything. Dr. Tohme even made a point of telling us not to forget to take the entry gates on our way out, as they would ‘bring a lot of money.'"

An expensive box set comprised of five auction catalogs was produced, and the electronic version of the catalog was uploaded to LiveAuctioneers.com. "From day one, there was enormous interest in the sale. The online catalog was very heavily visited, and absentee bids were pouring in," said LiveAuctioneers' CEO, Julian R. Ellison. "There can be no question about it, this would have been a hugely successful sale. There are some who felt it could gross as much as $12 million."

But the sale was not destined to take place.

Like a bolt out of the blue, Michael Jackson's attorneys filed a lawsuit against Julien's to prevent the auction from going forward. The suit alleged that Julien's had "effectively stolen Michael Jackson's personal property" and refused to return any of it "despite repeated demands." The eight charges in the document included fraud, conversion and unfair business practices.

A stunned Darren Julien told Auction Central News soon after the suit was filed that his company had deported itself in a professional and businesslike way and that he had "no idea why" Jackson's camp had taken such a course of action. "We have a contract," he said at the time, "and hopefully they will come to a realization and honor the contract. Everything we have done, Dr. Tohme (president of Jackson's company, MJJ Productions Inc.) has approved...We're proceeding with the auction because that's what our contract is for. They contacted us in July 2008, and our whole dialogue for the last eight months has been for nothing but an auction. We are not movers or a storage company; we are auctioneers." Julien's made it clear that they intended to proceed with the auction.

The standoff came to an end on April 14, 2009, when it was announced Jackson and Julien's Auctions had amicably resolved their dispute. The exact terms were not disclosed, but both sides seemed pleased with the outcome. It was agreed that the collection would be returned to Jackson, a financial settlement would be paid to Julien's, and the auction house would be able to exhibit the Jackson collection before returning the goods.

Now the 2,000 or so items that would have been auctioned - personal articles Michael Jackson ultimately decided he could not bear to part with - have taken on a new meaning. They have become the last tangible reminders of the remarkable career of a boy who rose from humble beginnings in a four-room house in Gary, Indiana, to become the world's biggest pop star.

How can any of us possibly imagine what it was like to be Michael Jackson, whose fame eclipsed the celebrity of all but a few of history's most celebrated performers? My own window on his world came in 1985, when I was producing a live-broadcast interview show from London's Capital Radio. A number of top bands had been scheduled to come in for a chat, but as the minutes ticked away and no one showed, a mild sense of panic began to set in. Finally, with seconds to go, into the studio came members of the band A Flock of Seagulls. They apologized profusely and said there had been a huge traffic jam on Marylebone Road. A hysterical crowd had jammed into the streets, clogging traffic for many blocks. My immediate thought was that maybe Queen Elizabeth was making an appearance. No, they said, it wasn't a queen; it was a king - The King of Pop. Michael Jackson had come to London for the unveiling of a wax figure in his likeness at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. He arrived on the top of a car, smiling and shaking hands with the crush of fans that moved in from all sides. To us, it was one crazy day. To Michael, it was just another day.

As a tribute to the late entertainer, Auction Central News has assembled a selection of images from the LiveAuctioneers.com archive and other sources that focus on a side of Michael Jackson that probably won't even be mentioned in the media blitz that lies ahead. These images represent Michael Jackson, the collector.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Farrah Fawcett, the Charlie's Angels star whose feathered blond hair and dazzling smile made her one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1970s, died today, June 25, 2009, after battling cancer. She was 62.

The pop icon, who in the 1980s set aside the fantasy girl image to tackle serious roles, died shortly before 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time in a Santa Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.

Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her side, along with close friend Alana Stewart, Bloch said.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - He's the reason adults of a certain age can't stop themselves from finishing the song line beginning "M-I-C-K-E-Y," the force causing untold legions to see marching mops when they hear the rousing strains of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

But the story of Walt Disney the man sometimes gets forgotten in the telling of his legend. Descendants of the 20th-century innovator hope to fix that disconnect with The Walt Disney Family Museum, opening this fall in San Francisco.

"My dad's story is an inspirational story," Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, said. "I want people to understand his character and how he pursued his career."

And have fun.

"Our museum will be entertaining," she said. "That's what dad was all about."

Since Disney's death at 65 in 1966, some of the coverage of the man behind the mouse hasn't been the happiest thing on Earth, starting with the oddly persistent falsehood that his body was cryogenically frozen. He was cremated and buried.

Meanwhile, the icon has become so distinct from the person that some younger people think "Walt Disney" is a made-up corporate character, said Richard Benefield, founding executive director of the new museum.

Even for those who know, the story can get confused.

"People remember very specific things about Walt and it's bits and pieces and you don't necessarily remember them in a collective way," Benefield said.

Seeing Disney's work in one place - the cutting-edge animation, the theme parks, the technological advancements - "the order of magnitude is pretty outstanding," he said.

Still under construction, with an opening date of Oct. 1, the museum will feature 10 galleries, starting with Disney's beginnings on a Missouri farm. Among the artifacts is the form on which a 16-year-old Disney lied about his age (changing his birth date from 1901 to 1900) to train as a Red Cross ambulance driver in World War I France; he arrived as the war ended. Exhibits include listening stations and more than 200 video monitors as well as interactive displays.

The museum consists of three historic buildings that have been redesigned and upgraded by Page & Turnbull of San Francisco, with interior architecture and installations by the Rockwell Group. It is set in the Presidio, a former Army base with sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge. That puts it, said Benefield, "in the center of the animation universe right now" with Lucasfilm Ltd. to the north and Pixar to the east.

Across the San Francisco Bay, Pixar co-founder John Lasseter is delighted about the new venture.

"Not only will it be a great illustration of Walt's life and career, but also his impact on entertainment and the medium of animation," said Lasseter, who studied under former Disney artists at the California Institute for the Arts, where he earned a film degree, and worked as a Disney animator early in his career. "I really think it will become one of the must-see places in San Francisco."

Exhibits highlight Disney innovations from synchronizing sound to a cartoon to fully capitalizing on the marvels of Technicolor to developing the multiplane camera to add depth to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was dubbed "Disney's folly" until it opened to wild acclaim.

The Oscar statuettes - one full size and seven little ones - awarded to that film will be on display. In all, Disney won a record 32 Academy Awards.

"His ideas were way beyond what was being done in Hollywood. He kept pushing the technology of animation and that is something that at Pixar we've always been doing as well," notes Lasseter, chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios.

(The Walt Disney Co. bought Pixar in 2006. The Disney Co. is collaborating on the project, but the $110 million museum, co-founded by Miller and her son Walter E.D. Miller, is an independent project fully funded by the Walt Disney Family Foundation.)

The story of Walt Disney is one of lows as well as highs and Benefield said the museum won't shy away from the former. "We're just putting it out there," he said.

After the success of Snow White, the movie Fantasia (1940) got mixed reviews - years later it would become a success - and nearly bankrupted the studio. Then came a strike at Disney Studios followed by the war years when the company was essentially taken over by the military. The museum will deal with the strike, which was bitter, and includes Disney's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Although it's not finished yet, what looks to be a visually arresting feature of the museum deals with Disney's fascination with trains, a hobby that eventually led him to create Disneyland. Visitors walking down a spiral ramp will pass a track suspended from the roof holding the "Lilly Belle," the 1/8 scale-model train Disney ran on a half-mile track around his home.

Disneyland would become the model of a modern theme park. It was also the place where a young Lasseter learned comic timing, telling "wonderful bad jokes" as a captain of the Jungle Cruise ride.

"What is so great about this museum is really teaching people about the man behind the name, the man behind all this great work," Lasseter says. "What I'm so excited about is for people to learn how creative this guy was and what an innovator he was."

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-06-22-09 0623EDT

DALLAS - Olivier Meslay, a noted and longtime curator from the Musée du Louvre, has been appointed to lead the Dallas Museum of Art's departments of European and American art. The announcement was made by Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director of the DMA.

During his 16-year tenure at the Louvre, Meslay has held a number of senior positions, including Curator of British, American and Spanish painting. Since 2006, he has served as Chief Curator of Louvre Lens, a satellite of the Louvre being developed in northern France.

An accomplished curator, scholar and professor, Meslay will hold a joint position at the DMA as Senior Curator of European and American Art and the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art. He will begin work in Dallas in August 2009.

"Olivier's experience as a scholar and curator at the Louvre, his innovative spirit, and his dynamic leadership will make him an extraordinary asset to the museum and the audiences we serve," said Pitman. "A recognized expert in European and American art, he brings an impressive breadth of knowledge and an important international perspective to our team."

In his new role at the DMA, Meslay will manage the museum's extensive collections of European and American art, comprised of nearly 4,000 works including paintings, sculptures and works on paper. He will oversee exhibitions, programs and staff for both departments, working collaboratively with the divisions of Education, Exhibitions and Publications, Collections Management and Marketing. 

Meslay will also serve as an advocate of the DMA locally, nationally, and internationally, and will act as the primary curatorial representative of FRAME (French Regional and American Museum Exchange), a collaborative organization partnering 12 regional American museums with 12 regional French museums.

"The Dallas Museum of Art is a remarkable institution with an outstanding international reputation," said Meslay. "I've long been inspired by collaborations with my U.S.-based colleagues, and I greatly look forward to the opportunities of this joint role in Dallas."

Meslay has organized numerous exhibitions over the course of his 20-year career and is one of France's leading specialists for American and English art. Before his current appointment as Chief Curator of Louvre Lens, Meslay served as the curator of the innovative "Louvre Atlanta" project, a three-year collaboration with the High Museum of Art that presented in Atlanta a total of seven exhibitions drawn from the Louvre's collections and which attracted more than one million visitors.

From 1993 through 2006, Meslay was the Louvre's curator in charge of British, American and Spanish paintings and organized such exhibitions as William Hogarth (2006-2007), American Artists and the Louvre (2006), L'art anglais dans les collections de l'Institut (2004), La collection de Sir Edmund Davis (1999) and Georges Lacombe, peintures et sculptures (1991). Meslay also led the development of two publicly accessible databases cataloguing the American and British art collections in French museums, including a total of approximately 5,000 objects.

Meslay is a graduate of the Institut National du Patrimoine (1992-1993), the French State School for Curators. He received an MA from the Ecole du Louvre in 1983, having previously received an MA from the Sorbonne in 1982, where he also earned his BA in 1981. Meslay was a recipient of a fellowship at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., from 2000 until 2001. From 1997 to 2006, he was also a professor at the Ecole du Louvre.

About the Dallas Museum of Art

Located in the vibrant Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) ranks among the leading art institutions in the country and is distinguished by its innovative exhibitions and groundbreaking educational programs. At the heart of the museum and its programs is its encyclopedic collections, which encompass more than 23,000 works and span 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Established in 1903, the museum today welcomes more than 600,000 visitors annually and acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary readings and dramatic and dance presentations.

The Dallas Museum of Art is supported in part by the generosity of museum members and donors and by the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas/Office of Cultural Affairs and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Visit them online at www.dallasmuseumofart.org.

PONCHATOULA, La. (AP) - Southern folk artist William Hemmerling, whose artistic creations using simple pieces of discarded wood and metal earned him acclaim, has died after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 66.

Jack Siekkinen, Hemmerling's manager, and his wife, Carol Siekkinen, who was Hemmerling's agent, confirmed Tuesday that the artist died Monday at his home in Ponchatoula, where his art gallery is also located. It's about 40 miles northwest of New Orleans.

"He was at genius level when it comes to creativity and imagination," said Carol Siekkinen. "He never worked on commission. He would just paint what he felt, whatever was inside."

VINALHAVEN, Maine (AP) - Robert Indiana never saw his oversized EAT sign illuminated after it went up at the New York World's Fair in 1964. A day after being turned on, the sign with its hundreds of light bulbs was turned off because it was attracting hungry tourists who thought it was a restaurant, not a piece of art.

On June 20, the EAT sign goes back on public display for the first time in 44 years as part of Indiana's first major U.S. exhibition in a decade, at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. The sign is being installed atop the museum roof with lights flashing on five large metal discs with the letters E, A and T.

Having EAT rise again after all these years brings back memories of his mother, who at one time ran a diner and whose final dying word was "eat," Indiana said.

"When the sign is finally turned on the roof of the Farnsworth and I see it for the first time, that will be one of my most exciting days in Maine and one of the most exciting days of my life," he said in an interview at his studio on Vinalhaven, an island 15 miles off the Maine coast where he has lived since 1978.

Auctioneer Ralph H. "Whitey" Shively, 81, of Mount Summit, Ind., died June 7 following a brief illness.

He was born on Sept. 22, 1927 to Mary Chambers and James Blaine Shively, the 10th of 12 children. Raised on the family farm, known as Sleepy Hollow, on Indiana Route 36, he became an auctioneer at the age of 13. He conducted many farm, estate and household auctions locally and worked more than 60 years as an auctioneer for the Kesler-Schaefer Auto Auction in Indianapolis.

Movie fans will remember him for his role as Doc Buggins in the 1986 film Hoosiers, which was filmed in central Indiana.

A veteran of the Korean War, he married Phyllis June Sidwell on Feb. 22, 1953. After 51 years of marriage, she preceded him in death on Jan. 14, 2004.

The National Auto Auction Association awarded him the Bernie Hart Memorial Trophy in 2003 and the Indiana Auctioneers Association presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to him in 2007.

Shively was a past president of both the Blue River Valley School Board and Henry County Memorial Park Board. He was a life-long member of the Mount Summit Christian Church.

Survivors include his son and daughter-in-law, Don and Laura Shively of Angola, Ind.; daughter Debby Shively and son-in-law Rick Parks of Los Angeles; sister Mary Lou (husband Cloyd) Dye of New Castle, Ind.; brother Dick (wife Mary Alice) Shively and brother Chet (wife Marilyn) Shively, all of southern Indiana.

Friends may call at the Hinsey-Brown Funeral Home in New Castle from 4-8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10. Services will be Thursday, June 11, at 5:30 p.m. at the Mount Summit Christian Church, graveside services to follow at the Mount Summit Cemetery.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Abstract painter Frederick Hammersley, one of the Los Angeles "Abstract Classicists," has died at age 90.

Hammersley died May 31 in Albuquerque.

A memorial service is set for 1 p.m. June 20 at the University of New Mexico Alumni Chapel.

The work of Hammersley and three other painters called the Abstract Classicists gained fame through a 1959 exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The geometric abstract paintings, described at the time as hard-edged, also appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland.

Reviewing a retrospective of his work in 2000, critic Leah Ollman said Hammersley made his work "more accessible, less aloof" by using titles as catalysts and handmade wooden frames that "nudge the works into a stylistic no-man's-land, which is all the richer for its internal contradictions and resistance to cut-and-dried uniformity.''

Interest in his work revived in the last decade. L.A. Louver Gallery in Venice, Calif., showed his paintings in 1999 and 2002; the Laguna Art Museum in 2000 presented a traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe; and the Pomona (Calif.) College Museum of Art held a retrospective in 2007.

Hammersley was born Jan. 5, 1919, in Salt Lake City and grew up there and in Idaho and San Francisco, where he took art classes for the first time. He spent two years at the University of Idaho before leaving to study art at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles.

He was stationed in Paris with the Army during World War II.

"That was marvelous for me, really," Hammersley said in a 1999 interview. "One day, the USO posted a sign offering trips to Picasso's studio." He went, then visited Picasso four more times.

As the war wound down, he took courses at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

When Hammersley returned to the United States, he studied for a year at Chouinard, now California Institute of the Arts, and three years at the now-defunct Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles.

He was an art professor in Southern California for about 20 years, teaching at Chouinard, Jepson and Pomona College in Claremont. Hammersley moved to Albuquerque in 1968 to take a job as assistant professor of art at the University of New Mexico. He resigned in 1971 to devote himself to painting.

He is survived by his sister, Susie H. Stone of Santa Fe, N.M.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WS-06-06-09 1754EDT

VINELAND, N.J. - Bertoia Auctions has announced that the Donald Kaufman Antique Toy Collection will be featured in a profile appearing in the June 7, 2009 Sunday edition of the New York Times.

Recently Times reporter Richard Chang spent a day with Don and Sally Kaufman at their Massachusetts home. The result of that visit is an exciting introspective into the passion behind Don Kaufman's 59-year pursuit of the finest antique automotive and other toys.

Chang's article will appear in the newspaper's Automobile section.

In their March 19-21 debut sale of the Kaufman Collection, Bertoia's set a house record with a $4.2 million gross. The company will continue its auction series exclusively featuring the Donald Kaufman Antique Toy Collection on Sept. 25 and 26, 2009. Internet live bidding will be provided by
LiveAuctioneers.com.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - A suspect has pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the strangling death of a Fairbanks businessman.

Raymond Jones, 29, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the December death of Daniel Frederick, 62, who operated Blondie's Antiques out of a log cabin in downtown Fairbanks.

Frederick disappeared from his shop, leaving beloved pets behind and unfed. Three current or former soldiers, including Jones, came under suspicion after using Frederick's credit cards on a spending spree of more than $50,000.

Frederick's body was found a few days later wrapped in a sleeping bag and buried in snow on the south outskirts of Fairbanks.

WASHINGTON - A Massachusetts antiques dealer has been arrested and charged in U.S. District Court in Boston with crimes related to the illegal importation and illegal trafficking of sperm whale teeth, the Justice Department announced on Friday, May 29, 2009.

On May 13, a federal grand jury sitting in Boston, returned an indictment that was unsealed on Friday against David L. Place, of Nantucket, Mass. The indictment charges Place, who owns Manor House Antiques Cooperative in Nantucket, with multiple counts of conspiracy and Lacey Act violations for buying and illegally importing sperm whale teeth into the United States, as well as selling the teeth after their illegal importation. Place was arrested on Friday morning at his home in Nantucket.

The indictment alleges that from 2001 to 2004, Place knowingly purchased and imported sperm whale teeth into the United States in violation of federal law. Sperm whales are classified as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). 

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. (AP) - Sam Maloof, whose simple, practical handmade wooden furniture sits in leading museums and the White House, has died. He was 93.

Maloof, the son of Lebanese immigrants, died on May 21 at his Southern California home, his business manager Boz Bock told the Los Angeles Times. No further details were given.

Maloof was praised for putting usefulness before artistry in the chairs, cradles, hutches and other pieces he designed and crafted by hand.

Maloof's signature piece was a rocking chair with elongated rockers jutting backward. The feature appeared sculptural, but was actually incorporated to keep the chair from tipping over.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who signed a photograph "to my woodworking hero" during a visit to Maloof's home, and subsequent presidents used Maloof's rocking chairs in the White House.

Maloof's modern furniture, assembled entirely out of wood without nails or metal hardware, fit handsomely in the minimalist homes of the postwar era. Its wood, leather and cork softened the hard edges of the era's architecture.

"He was trying to make other people appreciate what it was like to live with a handcrafted object in which there was a kind of union between maker, object and owner," said Jeremy Adamson, who wrote The Furniture of Sam Maloof, published in 2001 to coincide with an exhibition of Maloof's work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery in Washington.

Samuel Solomon Maloof was born Jan. 24, 1916 in the Southern California farming community of Chino.

While in elementary school, he used kitchen knives to carve wooden toy guns, swords and trucks.

After marrying his first wife, Alfreda Ward in 1947, Maloof used discarded fir plywood and oak shipping crates to build furniture for their new home, since they could not afford finished pieces. Soon friends asked for copies of the no-frills furniture.

Two years after opening his woodworking business in 1949, Better Homes & Gardens published photographs and plans of his furniture to show readers how to decorate economically.

In 1957, the American Craft Museum in New York displayed Maloof's work in its first exhibition of studio-craft furniture. Over the decades, his work has entered permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and other museums.

One of his former homes that he transformed from a small bungalow into a timbered 22-room house with a hand-carved spiral staircase and door latches shaped like miniature golf clubs, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Maloof was also the first craftsman to receive a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1985.

Friends said Maloof remained humble through his successful career and still referred to himself simply as a "woodworker," even as pieces of his furniture were reselling for 100 times their original price.

"I like the word," he once told a Times reporter. "It's an honest word."

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-05-23-09 1520EDT

TAOS, N.M. - To mark his years in Taos, his long-time friendships forged there, and the 40th anniversary of the release of the quintessential ‘60s counterculture film Easy Rider, actor/artist Dennis Hopper has teamed with The Harwood Museum of Art in presenting two special exhibitions during Taos' Summer of Love celebrations.

Hopper at the Harwood, which opened over the weekend after a previous, sold-out Artist Reunion Dinner Party, consists of an exhibition focusing on Hopper's own work - titled Selected Photographs and Paintings - and a second, titled Forty Years of Friendship: LA to Taos, which is an homage to the work of Hopper's compatriots Larry Bell, Ron Cooper, Ronald Davis, Ken Price and Robert Dean Stockwell. The exhibitions - both of which were curated by Hopper - will run through Sept. 20, 2009.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ernie Barnes, an African American figurative painter and lineman for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos, has died. He was 70.

Barnes died Monday at a hospital of complications from a rare blood disorder, his longtime assistant and friend Luz Rodriguez said. She would not elaborate on the disorder.

His famous Sugar Shack dance scene appeared on the cover of Marvin Gaye's I Want You in 1976 and the closing credits of the Good Times television show.

"It was how he recalled the juke joints he saw growing up as a kid," Rodriguez said. "That's his experience. He mastered the movement and energy and the spirit of it all. Kids try to copy it and they just don't hit it, try as they might."

His paintings are characterized by elongated figures with their eyes closed and many capture the dynamism of sports.