Grand Master

Dick Francis, a champion steeplechase jockey in Britain who became a bestselling mystery writer, died Sunday at his home in the Cayman Islands. He was 89. Ruth Cairns, a spokeswoman for Francis, told the Associated Press that the author died of natural causes. He wrote more than 40 novels, many featuring racing as a theme, after retiring from racing in 1957. "I haven't suffered the same injuries as my characters, but I have suffered pain and I know it," he told The Times during a visit to Southern California in 1981.

At age 102, the visionary Portuguese grand master writer-director Manoel de Oliveira is celebrating his 80th year as a filmmaker with a magical masterpiece, the enchanting yet provocative "The Strange Case of Angelica," a stunning tribute to the power of the image and the longing for perfect love that Oliveira suggests can exist only with the possibility of an afterlife. This fresh, highly original film, inspired by Oliveira's substantially different, never-filmed 1952 script, has been made with the greatest of ease and simplicity and with drollery and wit, yet its underlying impact is profoundly spiritual.

It's an authentic phenomenon. As "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," the last of three posthumous thrillers by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, goes on sale this week in the United States, his books have already sold 40 million copies worldwide in a mere five years, while the modestly mounted movie version of his first title has already grossed something like $100 million, with talk of remaking these Swedish productions in Hollywood versions....

It's an authentic phenomenon. As "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," the last of three posthumous thrillers by the Swedish writer Stieg Larsson, goes on sale this week in the United States, his books have already sold 40 million copies worldwide in a mere five years, while the modestly mounted movie version of his first title has already grossed something like $100 million, with talk of remaking these Swedish productions in Hollywood versions....

Stuart M. Kaminsky, a writer of impressive range who created four distinctive detectives for series set in Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida and Moscow, has died. He was 75. Kaminsky, who joined the elite of his craft in 2006 when the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master, died Friday at a St. Louis hospital of complications from hepatitis and a recent stroke, said his son Peter. Starting with "Bullet for a Star" in 1977, Kaminsky wrote more than 70 novels. He incorporated the names of his two sons for his first lead character, Toby Peters, a former movie lot security officer who prowled 1940s Hollywood on behalf of celebrity clients such as Errol Flynn and Peter Lorre.

Sportscaster Bud Collins was the first tennis coach at Brandeis University, where his No. 3 singles player was Abbie Hoffman, the 1960s radical who died last week. "Abbie and I didn't get along then," Collins told Newsday's Stan Isaacs. "I guess it was because he didn't like authority figures. When I first met the squad, he said, 'I'm the captain.' They had had a club team, so he figured that he would pick that title up again. "I said 'No,' and he didn't like that. I was jealous of him because he had a better car than I did--which he got because he was a pretty good entrepreneur.

Guillermo Garcia, 36, Cuban chess grand master. Garcia, Cuban champion in 1974, 1977 and 1983, first drew international attention at age 14 when he defeated Argentine grand master Oscar Panno. He had played on Cuban national chess teams in world competition since 1974. In 1982 he was an early leader in the Moscow tournament held to select a challenger for the world championship. On Friday near Havana in an auto accident.

Lord Kitchener, 77, regarded by many as the "grand master" of calypso music in Trinidad and Tobago. One of six children of a blacksmith, Kitchener was born Aldwyn Roberts. In an era when calypso performers assumed nicknames, Roberts decided to call himself Lord Kitchener after the British army officer who successfully waged a military campaign to win back Sudan in 1898.

Fra Andrew Bertie, a descendant of Britain's royal Stuart family who was grand master of the Knights of Malta, has died, the ancient lay Roman Catholic order said. He was 78. Bertie, who was the 78th grand master of the 900-year-old charitable order, died Feb. 7 in a Rome clinic, the group said in a statement. No cause of death was given. Bertie was elected to lead the order in a secret conclave in 1988. Officially known as the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St.

Grumbles From the Grave by Robert A. Heinlein, edited by Virginia Heinlein (A Del Rey Book: $19.95; 281 pages) There was a time, not long ago, but eons past in spirit, when everyone knew the verb grok . You could buy buttons and posters that contained the word, and people used it in conversation. It meant to understand fully and completely with great empathy, to be in harmony, and it came from Robert A.

Dick Francis, a champion steeplechase jockey in Britain who became a bestselling mystery writer, died Sunday at his home in the Cayman Islands. He was 89. Ruth Cairns, a spokeswoman for Francis, told the Associated Press that the author died of natural causes. He wrote more than 40 novels, many featuring racing as a theme, after retiring from racing in 1957. "I haven't suffered the same injuries as my characters, but I have suffered pain and I know it," he told The Times during a visit to Southern California in 1981.

Robert B. Parker, the best-selling author whose long-running "Spenser" private-eye novels updated the genre of hard-boiled detective fiction in the 1970s, has died. He was 77. Parker died Monday of a heart attack at his home in Cambridge, Mass., said his longtime literary agent, Helen Brann. "He was at his desk, working on a new book -- a new Spenser," Brann said. Once dubbed "the doyen of old-school, hard-boiled American pulp," the former English professor at Northeastern University in Boston wrote 60 novels -- 37 of them featuring his tough but literate private eye, Spenser, who debuted in "The Godwulf Manuscript" in 1973.

Stuart M. Kaminsky, a writer of impressive range who created four distinctive detectives for series set in Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida and Moscow, has died. He was 75. Kaminsky, who joined the elite of his craft in 2006 when the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master, died Friday at a St. Louis hospital of complications from hepatitis and a recent stroke, said his son Peter. Starting with "Bullet for a Star" in 1977, Kaminsky wrote more than 70 novels. He incorporated the names of his two sons for his first lead character, Toby Peters, a former movie lot security officer who prowled 1940s Hollywood on behalf of celebrity clients such as Errol Flynn and Peter Lorre.

Two holes, two towering shots, two clutch birdies. Just like that, Tiger Woods broke out of a four-way tie and won the Memorial on Sunday with a seven-under 65 to cap off a high-charged comeback. And just as suddenly, he silenced the skeptics who wondered if he was ready to defend his title in the U.S. Open in two weeks at Bethpage Black. "I knew I could do this," Woods said after birdies on the final two holes gave him a one-shot victory. "I was close to winning, but the game wasn't quite there when I really needed it on Sunday.

Fra Andrew Bertie, a descendant of Britain's royal Stuart family who was grand master of the Knights of Malta, has died, the ancient lay Roman Catholic order said. He was 78. Bertie, who was the 78th grand master of the 900-year-old charitable order, died Feb. 7 in a Rome clinic, the group said in a statement. No cause of death was given. Bertie was elected to lead the order in a secret conclave in 1988. Officially known as the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St.

In 1971 the American public knew little about the martial art known as hapkido. Then came the movie "Billy Jack" and an unforgettable performance by a then-unknown martial arts instructor, Bong Soo Han. Standing nearly nose to nose with one of the movie's villains, Han, a stunt double for Tom Laughlin, the movie's star, delivers a quick kick to the man's jaw, flooring him.

When players such as Tim and Tom Gullikson and Dick Stockton left the major Grand Prix tour last year to join the Grand Champions circuit, some thought suspense would take an indefinite leave with the addition of these younger players. They thought the 36-year-old Gulliksons would establish an immediate stranglehold on the circuit for players 35 and over, meeting each other in the singles championships and combining for doubles titles.

The over-45 men's tennis circuit that is the Grand Masters has a lot of things: Big names, travel, enough fun to keep things enjoyable, enough money to keep things interesting. What the Grand Masters doesn't have a lot of, for better or worse, are surprises on the court. Nostalgia sells here, not suspense.

His hair is thinner and his trophy case fuller, but Pete Sampras is no less driven to win Grand Slam championships than he was 10 years ago. On Saturday, the 10th anniversary of a straight-set victory over Andre Agassi that made him the youngest U.S. Open men's champion and signaled the arrival of a new era in tennis, the 29-year-old Sampras showed his competitive fires still burn and that the younger players trying to replace him at the top will have to wait.