Angel Tavira Maldonado, a Mexican musician whose acting debut in "El Violin" (The Violin) moved audiences and won him critical acclaim, including a best actor award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, died in a Mexico City hospital. He was 83.
Tavira died of kidney problems, a spokesperson for the company that co-produced "The Violin" told the Associated Press.
Tavira had never acted before director Francisco Vargas Quevedo cast him as the main character in "El Violin."
In the movie, he played a farmer and fiddle player who is secretly supporting a guerrilla peasant revolt against the Mexican government.
Eric Lieber, a television producer who created and was the executive producer of TV's long-running dating show "Love Connection," has died.
Lieber, 71, died of leukemia at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
After starting his career on a TV game show in New York in the late 1950s, Lieber went on to be a producer of the Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett and Sammy Davis Jr. talk shows, as well as three Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons.
He also produced specials such as "Grammy Salutes Oscar" in 1974 and "The American Film Institute Salute to Henry Fonda" in 1978, for which he shared an Emmy nomination.
