Deaths elsewhere

Ken Ober, 52, a comedian and actor who as host of MTV's "Remote Control" in the 1980s guided the raucous question-and-answer trivia contests on the irreverent cable TV game show, died Sunday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. Friends said Ober had flu-like symptoms. Autopsy results have not been released.

Ober was a stand-up comic when he landed the job as host of "Remote Control" in 1987. On a basement set featuring college-age contestants and audience members, Ober introduced categories spanning the universe of TV reruns -- beginning with the old black-and-white days of "Car 54, Where Are You?" and "Mr. Ed," but returning again and again to "The Brady Bunch." If the players, who were strapped into garish reclining lounge chairs, answered correctly, they got to choose the next category. Those eliminated were ridiculed, then pitched backward out of their chairs through the wall of the set.

Edward Woodward, 79, the British actor who starred in the 1980s detective TV series "The Equalizer" and the movies "Breaker Morant" and "The Wicker Man," died Monday in Cornwall, England. He suffered from pneumonia and other illnesses.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art who launched his career onstage in 1946, Woodward starred in "The Equalizer" on CBS from 1985 to 1989.

He received five Emmy nominations and won a Golden Globe for his role as Robert McCall, a disillusioned former secret agent using his skills to help people who had nowhere else to turn for justice. As McCall's newspaper ad put it: "Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer."

Paul Wendkos, 84, who directed more than 100 films and television shows during a 50-year career, including the 1959 surf movie "Gidget," died Thursday in Malibu, Calif., of a lung infection that followed a stroke. His other films include the 1957 drama "The Burglar," starring Jayne Mansfield, and 1969's "Guns of the Magnificent Seven."

Lewis L. Millett, 88, a retired Army colonel and veteran of three wars who received a Medal of Honor for leading a bayonet charge up a heavily defended hill during the Korean War, died Nov. 14 in Loma Linda, Calif.

"The man was born 170 years probably too late for his liking; there is zero question in my mind he would have been one of the original Sons of Liberty," said Mike Goldware, who oversaw the building of a war memorial in Riverside, Calif., in 1999. "He had an unequivocal love of country."