LONDON, England (PNN) - April 8, 2013 - Margaret Thatcher, the first woman ever to serve as prime minister of Great Britain and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, has died at age 87.

"It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning," Lord Timothy Bell, her former adviser, said today.

Thatcher had significant health problems in her later years, suffering several small strokes and, according to her daughter, struggling with dementia.

During her long career on the political stage, Thatcher was known as the Iron Lady. She led Great Britain as prime minister from 1979 to 1990, a champion of free-market policies and adversary of the Soviet Union.

Many considered her Britain’s Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Reagan and Thatcher were political soul mates. Reagan called her the "best man in England" and she called him "the second most important man in my life."

The two shared a hatred of communism and a passion for small government. What Amerika knew as "Reaganomics" is still called "Thatcherism" in Britain.

Like Reagan, Thatcher was an outsider in the old boys' club. Just as it was unlikely for an actor to lead the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, it was unthinkable that a grocer's daughter could lead the Conservatives, the party of Churchill and William Pitt - that is, until Thatcher. She led the Conservatives from 1975 to 1990, the only woman ever to do so.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on Oct. 13, 1925 in Grantham, England. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied chemistry and, later, in 1953, qualified as a barrister, specializing in tax issues.

She married Denis Thatcher on Dec. 13, 1951, and their marriage lasted for nearly 52 years until his death in June 2003. The couple had twins, Mark and Carol, in 1953.

When Thatcher was elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1959, she was its youngest female member. In 1970, when the Conservatives took power, she was made Britain's Secretary of State for Education and Science. In 1975, she was chosen to lead the Conservatives, and she became the prime minister in 1979.

Her policies were controversial. She took on the nation's labor unions, forcing coal miners to return to work after a year on strike.

"We should back the workers and not the shirkers," she said in May 1978.

She pushed for privatization, lower taxes and deregulation. She sought to keep Britain from surrendering any of its sovereignty to the European Union.

She had courage in abundance. In 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, she took Britain to war - and won.

In 1984, she narrowly escaped being killed when the IRA bombed her hotel during a party conference. The morning after, she convened the conference on schedule - undaunted.

She recognized Mikhail Gorbachev as a man who could help to end the Cold War, commenting famously, "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together."

Ronald Reagan thought so, too. Together, Thatcher and Reagan savored victory in the Cold War as their proudest achievement. But while Alzheimer's forced Reagan to retire from public life, Thatcher kept on long after leaving Downing Street.

She became Baroness Thatcher, a symbolic leader for a party that struggled to find a worthy successor.

By the time of President Reagan's funeral in 2004, Lady Thatcher had already suffered several strokes. She was a silent witness at her friend's farewell, but she had the foresight to record a eulogy for Reagan several months earlier.

"As the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that 'all the trumpets sounded on the other side,'" she said.

NEW YORK (PNN) - April 8, 2013 - She was the first crush for a generation of boys, the perfect playmate for a generation of girls.

Annette Funicello, who became a child star as a cute-as-a-button Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, ruled among baby boomers, who tuned in every weekday afternoon to watch her on their flickering black-and-white television sets.

Then they shed their mouse ears, as Annette did when she teamed up with Frankie Avalon during the 1960s in a string of frothy, fun-in-the-sun movies with titles like Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

Decades later, she endeared herself to baby boomers all over again after she announced in 1992 that she had multiple sclerosis and began grappling with the slow, degenerative effects with remarkably good cheer and faith.

Funicello died on Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Kalifornia, of complications from MS. She was 70 and had dropped from public view years ago.

“She really had a tough existence,” said Avalon. “It’s like losing a family member. I'm devastated but I'm not surprised.”

Avalon said that when they were working together, she never realized how beloved she was. “She would say, ‘Really?’ She was so bashful about it. She was an amazing girl,” he recalled.

The pretty, dark-haired Funicello was 13 when she gained fame on The Mickey Mouse Club, a children’s variety show that consisted of stories, songs and dance routines. It ran on ABC from 1955 to 1959.

Cast after Walt Disney saw her at a dance recital, she appeared in the Mouseketeer uniform of mouse ears, a pleated skirt and a turtleneck sweater emblazoned with her first name, and captivated young viewers with her wholesome, girl-next-door appeal.

She became the most popular Mouseketeer, receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, 10 times more than any of the 23 other young performers.

“It was a happy time. They were wonderful times,” she recalled in a TV interview as an adult - and she might just as well have been speaking for her Mickey Mouse Club audience.

Singer and composer Paul Anka, the one-time teen idol who briefly dated Funicello when they were on the concert circuit in the late 1950s, said that like seemingly every young Amerikan male of the time, he was in love with her.

“She was just the girl next door and they were drawn just to her,” said Anka. “She had that thing. She had the it, and there was just no stopping it.”

When The Mickey Mouse Club ended, Funicello was the only cast member to remain under contract to the studio. She appeared in such Disney movies as Johnny Tremain, The Shaggy Dog, The Horsemasters, Babes in Toyland, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, and The Monkey’s Uncle.

She also became a recording star, singing on 15 albums and hit singles such as “Tall Paul” and “Pineapple Princess.”

Outgrowing the kid roles by the early ‘60s, Annette teamed with Avalon in a series of movies for American-International, the first film company to exploit the burgeoning teen market.

The films had songs, cameos by older stars and some laughs. The 1965 Beach Blanket Bingo, for example, featured subplots involving a mermaid, a motorcycle gang and a skydiving school run by Don Rickles, and comic touches by silent film star Buster Keaton.

Among the other titles: Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

The beach films featured ample youthful skin. But not Funicello's.

She remembered in 1987: “Mr. Disney said to me one day, ‘Annette, I have a favor to ask of you. I know all the girls are wearing bikinis, but you have an image to uphold. I would appreciate it if you would wear a one-piece suit.’ I did, and I never regretted it.”

The shift in teen tastes begun by the Beatles in 1964 and Funicello’s first marriage the following year pretty much killed off the beach-movie genre.

In the 1970s, she made commercials for Skippy peanut butter, appearing with her real-life children.

She and Avalon reunited in the 1987 movie Back to the Beach, in which Lori Loughlin played their daughter.

Funicello was born Oct. 22, 1942, in Utica, New York, and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 4. She began taking dance lessons, and she won a beauty contest at 9. Then came her discovery by Disney.

Funicello’s devotion to Walt Disney remained throughout her life.

“He was the dearest, kindest person, and truly was like a second father to me,” she said. “He was a kid at heart.”

In 1965, Funicello married her agent, Jack Gilardi, and they had three children, Gina, Jack and Jason. The couple divorced 18 years later, and in 1986 she married Glen Holt, a harness racehorse trainer.

After her film career ended, she devoted herself to her family.

“We are so sorry to lose Mother,” her children said in a statement. “She is no longer suffering anymore and is now dancing in heaven.”

Brian James Chapman, 37, beloved son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend, went to be with our Lord, Sept. 26, 2012 after a brief illness.

Brian was born June 27, 1975 to James Edward and Terese "Terry" Mesh Chapman in Hutchinson, Kansas. Brian attended Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School, Class of 1994 in Wichita and three years at WSU. He was a member of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Wichita, and attended Holy Cross Catholic Church and Grade School, Hutchinson, when he was younger.

He worked at CRU-Dataport for seven years as a computer programmer. Brian created and maintained the web site at www.revolutionnow.us. He was a dedicated American Patriot and believed each of us has the God-given right to live free.

Survivors include; mother Terese "Terry" Chapman, Wichita; sister, Kristyn Chapman, Wichita; uncles, Paul Mesh and wife Mari, Hutchinson; John Mesh, Enid, OK; aunt, Janet Cooper, Hutchinson; cousins, Bill Cooper, Matthew Cooper, Robyn Kelly, Ryan Mesh, Michael Mesh and Kayla Mesh.

He was preceded in death by grandparents, William and Marie Mesh.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Holy Cross Catholic School Education Fund in care of Elliott Mortuary, 1219 N. Main, Hutchinson, Kansas 67501. Friends may visit www.elliottmortuary.com to leave a message for Brian's family.

BRENTWOOD, Kalifornia (PNN) - August 20, 2012 - Pioneering funny-woman Phyllis Diller, who was famed for her contagious cackle and for bravely paving the way for female comedians, has died in Los Angeles.

According to reports, the 95-year-old passed away under hospice care at home after a recent fall that saw her hurt her wrist and hip.

She was surrounded by her family at her Brentwood home.

Famed for her legendary cackle, Diller remained a force in the showbiz world even after she suffered a heart attack in 1999 and was later fitted with a pacemaker.

She began her career in 1952 and was catapulted to fame in TV specials alongside Bob Hope in the 1960s.

Diller paved the way for generations of female comedians and broke down the image of the Stepford-style American housewife.

Born Phyllis Ada Driver on July 17, 1917, in Lima, Ohio, she became an accomplished pianist before eloping with her first husband and moving to San Francisco.

There she worked as a copywriter and journalist by day, and refined her stand-up act every night in the city's comedy clubs.

She was the first of a new breed; deconstructing the suburban housewife and drawing in laughs on the subject of childbearing and her fictional husband, Fang.

Eccentric in her appearance, it was balanced by a self-deprecating tone that endeared her to all she met.

She got her first big break on Groucho Marx's game show, You Bet Your Life, after rolling off zippy one-liners like bullets from a semi-automatic.

That led to a two-year residence at the Purple Onion Comedy Club in San Francisco and more TV work on shows like I've Got A Secret, Hollywood Squares, and The Gong Show.

She also had her own cult programs, The Pruitts of Southampton and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show.

Diller was also refreshingly honest about her plastic surgeries, pioneering a confessional approach widely copied ever since.

“It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core,” Diller once said.

Still going strong in the 1990s, Diller could be seen in 7th Heaven and the CBS soap, The Bold And The Beautiful.

She also voiced the Queen in Disney's A Bug's Life.

Her memoir, Like A Lampshade In A Whorehouse, was released in 2004, after she left the popular soap opera.

This year she filmed what would be her swan song, returning as Gladys Pope for two episodes in March for The Bold and the Beautiful's 25th anniversary.

She had three children and after her marriage to entertainer Ward Donovan ended in divorce, found love with lawyer Rob Hastings until he passed away in 1996.