Ettore Sottsass Jr., 90, an influential Italian designer and architect whose creations -- including the now-iconic red Olivetti portable typewriter -- were designed to change the perception of functional objects and enhance the experience of using them, died of heart failure Monday at his home in Milan, Italy, according to news reports. In the United States, Sottsass was known primarily as the patriarch of the Memphis group, a collaborative whose provocative furniture creations in the early 1980s challenged the tenets of modern design.
James Costigan, a TV writer who won three Emmys, including one in 1975 for the screenplay of "Love Among the Ruins," died on Dec. 19 at his home on Bainbridge Island, Wash. He was believed to have been in his late 70s or early 80s.
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