Dale Wasserman, a playwright born in Rhinelander, Wis., best known for writing the book for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Man of La Mancha" and the stage version of Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," has died. He was 94.

Wasserman died last Sunday of congestive heart failure at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz.

From writing live TV dramas in the 1950s, Wasserman went on to write screenplays for several films, including "The Vikings" (1958), starring Kirk Douglas, and "Mister Buddwing" (1966), starring James Garner.

But it was as one of America's most-produced living playwrights, thanks largely to "Man of La Mancha," that he was best known over the past four decades.

The genesis of "Man of La Mancha" was Wasserman's "I, Don Quixote," a 90-minute 1959 television drama on "The Du Pont Show of the Month," starring Lee J. Cobb as both Cervantes and Don Quixote, and Eli Wallach as Sancho Panza.

Samuel Huntington, a political scientist best known for his views on the clash of civilizations, died Wednesday on Martha's Vineyard, Harvard University announced Saturday. He was 81.

Huntington had retired from active teaching in 2007 after 58 years at Harvard. His research and teaching focused on American government, democratization, military politics, strategy and civil-military relations.

He argued that in a post-Cold War world, violent conflict would come not from ideological friction between nations, but from cultural and religious differences among the world's major civilizations.

He identified those civilizations as Western (including the United States and Europe), Latin American, Islamic, African, Orthodox (with Russia as a core state), and Hindu, Japanese and "Sinic" (including China, Korea and Vietnam).

He made the argument in a 1993 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, and then expanded the thesis into a book, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," published in 1996. The book has been translated into 39 languages.

In all, Huntington wrote 17 books including "The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations," published in 1957 and inspired by President Harry Truman's firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

The Rev. Marshall Truehill Jr., a New Orleans activist and religious leader, died from a massive heart attack on Christmas Day. He was 60.

Truehill was known for his ministry in public housing projects. Since 1973, he pursued improving the quality of life for residents.

Truehill, appointed to the City Planning Commission in 1998, used his knowledge of planning and public policy with firsthand experience of New Orleans neighborhoods and its people to promote economic development and commerce while preserving the character and integrity of the city's historic neighborhoods.

Dorothy Sarnoff, an opera singer and Broadway star who had a much bigger second career as one of the first, and most influential, image consultants, died Dec. 20 at her home in Manhattan. She coaxed stage-worthy performances from business executives preparing a big speech, ambassadors on their way to foreign assignments and writers heading out on book tours. She was 94.

Sarnoff dazzled the critics as Lady Thiang, the king's head wife, in the original production of "The King and I" in 1951. But she won her most devoted following as the founder and motivating force behind Speech Dynamics, an image-consulting company that helped its clients shine on talk shows, behind the lectern or in intimidating social settings.

Her clients included Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, Bob Dole and Danielle Steel.

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