The distinguished actor and television leading man, John Forsythe, passed away yesterday at his home in Santa Ynez, California, following a year-long battle with cancer. According to his publicist, Harlon Boll, the 92-year-old actor succumbed to complications of pneumonia.

John Forsythe is best known for two iconic roles on television, only one of which included his appearance. On 'Charlie's Angels,' the hit ABC jiggle-cop show of the 1970s, Forsythe was the voice of Charlie Townsend, the man who hired Kelly, Sabrina and Jill as investigators in the Townsend detective agency.

You probably remember the classic Sesame Street album Sesame Street Fever (on the right), a takeoff on the movie soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and the disco craze in general. The producer of that best-selling album died of bladder cancer on Monday in New York City.

Arthur Shimkin also produced the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer album sung by Jimmy Durante and came up with the idea that spawned Little Golden Records, which included such artists as Bing Crosby, Alfred Hitchcock, Roy Rogers, and Burl Ives. He also produced the 1961 version of Peter and the Wolf, with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. I remember that album really well. When I was in fourth or fifth grade, if you finished your work in class early, you got to go over to the corner of the room, sit in a comfy chair, and listen to albums on headphones, and that was one I listened to over and over again.

The obit says that Shimkin produced over 3000 records, and that is quite an achievement.