Country's flash of colour

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/magazine/7074891.stm

Version 0 of 1.

BEEN AND GONE By Natasha Gruneberg BBC News Profiles Unit Our regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - characters of the past month.

Wagoner was known for his flamboyant outfits

• <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7023501.stm">Porter Wagoner's</a> flamboyant dress sense and good looks, almost as much as his eye for a variety of talent, helped make his long-running country music show a hit. It was through the programme that a young Dolly Parton became a star and the pair duetted on several hit records. Wagoner also brought James Brown to the home of country music, The Grand Ole Opry, and earlier this year opened for The White Stripes at Madison Square Garden.

Werner von Trapp became Kurt in the movie

• Traditional music of a very different kind was the stock in trade of <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7043585.stm">Werner von Trapp</a>, one of the Trapp family singers, whose story inspired the Sound of Music. Werner was the second oldest of the children and was represented in the musical as Kurt. The family fled Austria after it was annexed by the Nazis, having refused to sing at Adolf Hitler's birthday party. Werner became an American citizen and his four grandchildren now perform as The Trapp Family Singers.

• Just as Werner von Trapp's name was not mentioned in his contribution to the silver screen, few would know the name of Bud Ekins - though we've all seen his work. As a stuntman on The Great Escape it was he, not Steve McQueen, who jumped the barbed wire fence at the end of the film, after the film company refused to allow McQueen to take on such a risk. Ekins and McQueen had a long-standing friendship and also worked together on Bullitt, which contained perilous-looking driving stunts around the streets of San Francisco which still take the breath away today.

Denard staged coups in the Comoros Islands four times

• Another man who thrived on danger was the French soldier of fortune<a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7043827.stm">Bob Denard</a>. He was one of the most famous mercenary leaders of the last century, fighting all over Africa in the 1960s and 70s. He tried to overthrow the government of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean no fewer than four times.

• <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7068743.stm">Professor Anthony Clare</a> was for a long time the best-known psychiatrist in the country, appearing on radio programmes such as In the Psychiatrist's chair on television and on BBC Radio 4. His modus operandi was an extended interview with a well-known person in which he used his professional experience and gentle questioning style to reveal little-known aspects of their personality. Clare also wrote books including Depression and How to Survive It, which he co-wrote with one of his patients, Spike Milligan.

• The American painter RB Kitaj made his career in London but then left in fury, accusing critics of having killed his wife. He had come to this country in the 1950s to study art and became part of a group of artists which included Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach, whom he called the School of London. But when he put on a major show at the Tate in 1994, the reviewers were so brutal that he more or less accused them of murdering his wife, who became ill during the exhibition.

• One of the oldest creatures to pass away this month was not a person but a clam. <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7066389.stm">Ming</a> the quahog clam was thought to be about 405 and lived longer than any other creature known to man. His life began when Elizabeth I was on the throne and he spent the intervening centuries on the ocean floor, blissfully unaware of world wars, disease and terrorism. On the downside he missed out on Shakespeare, music and salt and vinegar crisps. His no doubt blameless life was brought to an end by a dredging team.

Among others who died in October were: broadcaster and raconteur <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7023129.stm">Ned Sherrin</a>; Hancock's Half Hour actress <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7068208.stm">Moira Lister</a>; the humorist <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7052510.stm">Alan Coren</a>; Hollywood actress <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7051206.stm">Deborah Kerr</a> and the composer of some of TV's best theme tunes <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7023501.stm">Ronnie Hazlehurst</a>.