LOS ANGELES - Ray Conniff, the composer, trombone player and bandleader who won a Grammy Award for his recording of the "Dr. Zhivago" theme "Somewhere My Love," died Saturday after falling down and hitting his head. He was 85.

Conniff had more than 100 recordings and produced 25 Top 40 albums for Columbia Records. He rendered such classics as "Besame Mucho," "New York, New York," and "S' Wonderful," in a career that spanned six decades.

He produced 10 gold and two platinum records. He won CBS Records' Best Selling Artist for 1962 for the recording, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."

The Ray Conniff Orchestra and Singers epitomized the lounge-singing style of the 1950s and 1960s with a mix of wordless vocal choruses and light orchestral accompaniment.

Though he got his start as a trombone player in the Big Band era playing with Bunny Berigan, Bob Crosby and Artie Shaw, Conniff broke out as a solo artist after being hired as a house arranger with Columbia Records in 1951.

His popularity waned with the rise of rock 'n' roll but stars such as The Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, The Fifth Dimension and Bert Bacharach benefited from his arrangements with recordings of "Laughter in the Rain," "I Write the Songs," and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."

He performed at the White House during the Vietnam War and in 1974 was the first pop artist asked to record an album in Moscow. In 2001, he gave a series of concerts in Brazil. He performed "Somewhere My Love" at the wedding of David Gest and Liza Minnelli in March.

L.H. Fountain

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - L.H. Fountain, who served in Congress for three decades, died Oct. 10 after a long illness. He was 89.

Fountain represented North Carolina's 2nd District from 1953-83, championing consumer issues and leading investigations into federal agency corruption.

He chaired the House Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee, which examined waste, inefficiency and corruption in federal government. He was instrumental in the creation of independent inspector general posts within several federal agencies.

Fountain was born in Edgecombe County in 1913.

After receiving his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Fountain returned to Edgecombe County to practice law.

In 1942, he enlisted in the Army as a private and served until 1946. He left the service as a major in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Office.

A year later, he was elected to the state Senate, serving three terms before his election to Congress.

Fountain served 14 years on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Eddie Hausner

NEW YORK (AP) - Eddie Hausner, an award-winning photographer for The New York Times, died Saturday at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J. He was 76.

Hausner joined the staff of the Times in 1946 and worked at the newspaper as a photographer and editor for five decades.

His work, for which he received awards from the Newspaper Guild of New York and the New York Press Photographers Association, is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

His subjects included former professional football star Joe Namath and poor people in the South. In 1950, he shot his favorite photograph, an umbrella salesman waiting for customers.

Born in 1926, Hausner fought as a rifleman in World War II. After the war, he was transferred to the E.T.O Army Pictorial Service.

Tooru Joe Kanazawa

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Writer Tooru Joe Kanazawa, one of the oldest members of World War II's legendary Japanese-American fighting unit, died Oct. 2 of emphysema. He was 95.

Kanazawa, who grew up in Seattle and Alaska, escaped the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans when he moved to New York in 1940.

He went to work for the Japanese American Citizens League in Washington, D.C. and advocated reversing federal policy to allow Japanese-Americans to serve in combat.

More than 3,000 first-generation Japanese-Americans, also known as Nisei, fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, including several hundred who volunteered from the internment camps.

At 36, Kanazawa was one of the oldest volunteers when he joined the regiment in 1943.

He was the author of two books: "Close Support, A History of the Cannon Company of the 442d Regimental Combat Team" and "Sushi and Sourdough," a 1989 novel, completed when he was 83, that is taught in many Asian-American studies courses.

The novel described the struggle of Japanese immigrants in Alaska's salmon canneries during the 1920s.

Dennis Patrick

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dennis Patrick, a veteran actor best known for recurring roles on the television series "Dallas," and "Dark Shadows," died Sunday as his house caught fire. He was 84.

An autopsy was pending.

Many of Patrick's roles leaned toward the macabre, including appearances on the "The Twilight Zone," "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and the campy '60s soap opera "Dark Shadows." His recent appearances include the 1988 TV miniseries "War and Remembrance," and the 1994 movie, "The Air Up There."

James Searles

NEW YORK (AP) - James Searles, who excelled at the lightning-fast form of checkers and even drafted a constitution for the game, died Oct. 5. He was 90.

Searles, whose friends called him "Step," organized the Brooklyn Elite Pool Checker Club so that he and other players could have a regular place to play. The group would gather several night a week, where they would play their particular form of checkers.

"Checker players is really a brotherhood - like family," Searles said in an oral history included in David Isay's 1995 book, "Holding On."

Searles learned how to play pool checkers, in which single pieces can jump forward or backward diagonally, while working as a bellhop at a Philadelphia hotel. He said he used to play checkers with members of Duke Ellington's band and once played Count Basie.

In the 1972 constitution that he drafted, Searles pledged to "elevate checkers to a level of respect equal to or greater than that of any other national or international pastime."