newsmakers

newsmakers

Demi was convulsing, according to 911 call

LOS ANGELES

Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital Monday night and was “semi-conscious, barely,” according to a caller on a 911 recording released Friday by LA fire officials.

The woman tells emergency operators that Moore had been “having issues lately.”

“Is she breathing normal?” the operator asked.

“No, not so normal. More kind of shaking, convulsing, burning up,” the friend said.

When the emergency operator asked what Moore ingested or smoked, the caller replied, but the answer was redacted.

“Some form of ... and then she smoked something. I didn’t really see. She’s been having some issues lately with some other stuff. So I don’t know what she’s been taking or not.”

When the operator asked the friend if this has happened before, she said, “I don’t know. There’s been some stuff recently that we’re all just finding out.”

By the end of the call, Moore seemed to have improved.

Robert Hegyes dies; starred on ‘Kotter’

METUCHEN, N.J.

Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for playing Jewish Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein on the 1970s TV show “Welcome Back Kotter,” has died. He was 60.

The Flynn & Son Funeral Home in Fords, N.J., said it was informed of Hegyes’ death Thursday by the actor’s family. A spokesman at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J., said Hegyes, of Metuchen, arrived at the hospital Thursday morning in full cardiac arrest and died.

Hegyes was appearing on Broadway in 1975 when he auditioned for “Kotter,” a TV series about a teacher who returns to the inner-city New York school of his youth to teach a group of irreverent remedial students nicknamed the “Sweathogs.” They included the character Vinnie Barbarino, played by John Travolta.

Peter, Paul and Mary bassist dies at 74

SAUGERTIES, N.Y.

Dick Kniss, a bassist who performed for five decades with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary and co-wrote the John Denver hit “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” has died. He was 74.

Associated Press