Maurice Noble, 91, was one of animation's greatest designers and layout artists. He worked on Disney's prewar classics (Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo). Later, Noble designed the background settings and color schemes for many of director Chuck Jones' greatest Warner Bros. shorts (What's Opera, Doc?, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century, Robin Hood Daffy, et al.), as well as Jones' later Dr. Seuss adaptations. Jones eventually gave co-director credit to Noble, acknowledging the vital role Noble played in creating the look of Jones' films.

Bill Chace, 91, owned Bellevue's landmark Pancake Corral restaurant. He also ran the now-defunct (and more modest) Coffee Corrals on Stewart Street and University Way. Both were honest-food-for-honest-folk places serving up hearty short-order grub at affordable prices.

Frank G. Slaughter, 93, wrote 56 novels from 1941 to 1984, selling some 60 million copies. A former surgeon, Slaughter included medical themes in almost all of his books, no matter where or when they were set (the Civil War, ancient Greece, the time of Christ, etc.). Here's one passage from "Upon This Rock," his account of the Apostle Peter: "This was the first time Peter had raised a person up from the dead and he could not help feeling a little bit awed by it."

Jazz-pop singer Susannah McCorkle, an apparent suicide at 55, was described by The New York Times as having "brought a rare literary refinement to popular standards." The jazz-pop singer recorded 17 albums, toured as a one-woman cabaret show, and wrote long articles in American Heritage magazine about American music legends (Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Irving Berlin).

Courtney Love had a miscarriage while filming a movie in Vancouver, BC. Her P.R. reps say she'd been "very early in the pregnancy," but declined to name the father of the kid who might have been.

Danny's Music in Everett held its closing sale last weekend after 10 years in business. Owner Danny Mangold had to close his store, which was filled with vintage guitars and rock-star memorabilia, to concentrate on recovering from an April 21 car wreck on I-5. (His 1963 Ford Futura, given to him by Dave Grohl, was totaled; Mangold is in slightly better shape.)

Lloyd Shearer, 83, was the original writer of Walter Scott's Personality Parade in the Sunday newspaper magazine Parade. From 1958 to 1991, he filled Parade's second page with assorted celeb-gossip items, all in Q&A format. ("Q: Does Raquel Welch have any talent as an actress? A: For years Raquel Welch has been kind to her mother.")

Hartzell Spence, 93, edited Yank, the U.S. military's magazine for soldiers during World War II. There, he ran weekly pictures of movie stars and starlets in provocative attire, described with a term Spence may have coined: "pinup."