Sandy Howard

LOS ANGELES -- Sandy Howard, a film and television producer whose credits include "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and the 1970s Western "A Man Called Horse," has died. He was 80.

Howard had been a resident of the hospital's Alzheimer's and Dementia Care Facility, Harry's Haven, for 10 years.

Born in the Bronx, New York, Howard started his career as a publicist for Broadway shows before directing TV's "Howdy Doody" at age 19, according to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

He went on to produce "Captain Kangaroo," then became executive producer for "The Barry Gray Radio Show" from 1951 to 1958, the fund said.

In the '60s, Howard moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film.

He produced dozens of movies, including '70s films "Echoes of a Summer" with Jodie Foster, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" starring Burt Lancaster and "Meteor" with Sean Connery.

Jeff Torrington

LONDON -- Scottish writer Jeff Torrington, who labored 30 years on an award-winning first novel based on his own hard life, died Sunday. He was 72.

Torrington, whose novel "Swing Hammer Swing!" won two Whitbread Awards in 1992, for best first novel and book of the year, died at Dykebar Hospital in Paisley, Scotland, his family said.

The cause of death was not announced, but he had suffered from Parkinson's disease since the 1980s.

Torrington grew up in the tough Gorbals district of Glasgow, living down the street from his father, an army cook who had a separate family and never married Torrington's mother.

Leaving school at 13 because of tuberculosis, Torrington shuffled among jobs as banana packer, postman, locomotive fireman, cinema projectionist and automobile assembly-line worker.

He also wrote short stories which appeared in local newspapers and the New Edinburgh Review.

Torrington's second book, "The Devil's Carousel," was published in 1996. He had a third work in progress when he died.

-- The Associated Press