newsmakers

newsmakers

Actress Eileen Brennan dies in Calif. at age 80

LOS ANGELES

Eileen Brennan, who went from musical comedy on Broadway to wringing laughs out of memorable characters in such films as “Private Benjamin” and “Clue,” has died. She was 80.

Brennan’s managers, Jessica Moresco and Al Onorato, said she died Sunday at home in Burbank after a battle with bladder cancer.

“Our family is so grateful for the outpouring of love and respect for Eileen,” her family said in a statement. “She was funny and caring and truly one of a kind. Her strength and love will never be forgotten.”

Brennan got her first big role on the New York stage in “Little Mary Sunshine,” a musical comedy that won her the 1960 Obie award for best actress. Along with her “excellent singing voice,” her performance was “radiant and comic,” said a New York Times review.

But it was a series of sharp-tongued roles that won her fans on television and in movies, including gruff Army Capt. Doreen Lewis in 1980’s “Private Benjamin,” aloof Mrs. Peacock in 1985’s “Clue” and mean orphanage superintendent Miss Bannister in 1988’s “The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking.”

“Private Benjamin” brought her a supporting- actress nomination for an Oscar.

She also won an Emmy for repeating her “Private Benjamin” role in the television version and was nominated six other times for guest roles on such shows as “Newhart,” “thirtysomething,” “Taxi” and “Will & Grace.”

She is survived by her two sons, Sam and Patrick Brennan.

Mercury-Jackson duets could be released

LONDON

Queen guitarist Brian May says he’s working to complete duets recorded 30 years ago by the band’s late frontman Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson.

Mercury and Jackson recorded together at Jackson’s California home in 1983, but the material was not released.

May said in 2011 that he had been given permission by the Jackson estate to release the recordings. This month he wrote that “we will have something for folks to hear in a couple of months’ time, hopefully.”

Vindicator wire services