Obituary: George Sidney

Veteran movie director George Sidney, famed for such musicals as Anchors Aweigh, Kiss Me Kate and Annie Get Your Gun, has died at his Las Vegas home.

Sidney, who died aged 85, succumbed to complications of lymphoma.

The New York native shot 28 features in 27 years, working with such stars as Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, Dick Van Dyke and Elvis Presley. After making his mark in short films, Sidney moved to features in 1941. Feisty campaigner Baroness Castle of Blackburn, one of the feistiest British Labour politicians of her generation, has died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 91.

Barbara Castle, a member of Harold Wilson's kitchen cabinet and a doughty campaigner for pensioners and women's rights, fought and won many fierce political battles, including to have child benefit paid directly to women.

Friends and enemies Former President Hugo Banzer, a one-time dictator who led Bolivia to democracy and helped to wipe out cocaine production, died of a heart attack at age 75.

The two-time president was forced by cancer to resign from office last August. Supporters say he strengthened Bolivian democracy. Critics contend the former dictator never lost his authoritarian streak, abusing human rights and failing to help the poor. Words for Elvis Songwriter Otis Blackwell, whose tunes Don't Be Cruel and Great Balls of Fire became smash hits for Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, has died, aged 70, after being ill for some time.

A member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the pianist and singer from New York launched his writing career by selling six songs for US$150.

Wartime code-breaker William Tutte, a renowned mathematician who helped to crack Nazi codes during World War II, has died. He was aged 84.

The British-born Tutte was diagnosed six weeks ago with heart failure and spleen cancer and died on Thursday in Ontario, where he was a professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo.

Flight of goodwill The RAF airman who flew a Lancaster bomber on a goodwill mission to New Zealand and Australia in World War II has died in England.

Air Vice-Marshal David McKinley was aged 88. In 1944 he piloted the best known bomber of the war to New Zealand, the first time the type had been here. The four-engined aircraft thundered over almost every town in the country.

Memories of the Bolshoi Yevgeny Svetlanov, a renowned pianist, composer and former chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, has died at age 73. Two years ago he was dismissed from his post conducting the State Symphony Orchestra after Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi said he was spending too much time conducting overseas.