Danny Puff

William Moody, better known to pro wrestling fans as Paul Bearer, the pasty-faced, urn-carrying manager for performers The Undertaker and Kane, has died, the WWE said. He was 58.

A spokesman for the wrestling company said Moody's family contacted the WWE to report the death on Tuesday. No cause was released.

After stints in various independent wrestling promotions, Moody joined the WWE in 1990 and quickly became associated with The Undertaker, a character who claimed he was undead and boasted of mystical powers.

In the WWE plotline, Paul Bearer later managed Undertaker's on-screen half brother Kane. He also managed the bad-guy character Mick "Mankind" Foley.

His shrill catchphrase, "Ooohhh yeeesss!" and contorted facial expressions made him one of the sports-entertainment company's more popular personalities for more than a decade.

In the outlandish world of pro wrestling, Paul Bearer was once placed in a glass casket and buried in concrete. In his final WWE appearance last year, Paul Bearer was locked in a freezer by Randy Orton and left there tied up even after he was found by Kane.

That was Moody's life in the WWE. And it was a business he loved for nearly 40 years. Many of his colleagues paid tribute to him on Wednesday on Twitter.

"Rest in peace, Paul Bearer. You will never be forgotten. There will never be another," wrote wrestler Triple H.

Moody was a perfect fit as a macabre mortician. When he joined the WWE, he ditched the blond hair and Percy Pringle name he forged in the 1980s for jet black locks complete with powdered white face. In the act, Paul Bearer's urn had some unexplained power that protected the Undertaker, allowing his protege to escape unscathed from every leg drop and big boot to the face. Paul Bearer also hosted the WWE segment, "The Funeral Parlor."

Moody, an Alabama native, told the pro wrestling website PWTorch.com last year that had a degree in mortuary science. He said he was a licensed funeral director and embalmer. He was called to WWE chairman Vince McMahon's office about taking the job as Undertaker's manager without the company knowing his true background.

"It was one those had-to-be-there moments when Vince realized I was the real thing, the real deal," Moody told the website. "I was the real Undertaker."

Moody battled health and weight problems and worked on and off for the company after 2002.

Foley said he babysat Moody's children and called him "Uncle Paul." The Paul Bearer character will be remembered most for the soap opera twists in his relationship with The Undertaker, still one of the premier stars of the company.

"It just seemed so bizarre," Foley said in a telephone interview. "But at the same time, he was a perfect fit for The Undertaker. They went on to become iconic figures in our profession."

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Dan Gelston can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APGelston

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Nothing's certain in network television, but things have been especially uncertain on the set of "Community," the quirky college sitcom that's been a cult favorite, but never a mainstream hit.

"Near cancellation," actress Gillian Jacobs said before a PaleyFest tribute to the series Tuesday night. "On the schedule, off the schedule. Tell us one night. We never air on that night. We lose a creator of our show. Reduced episodes. Everything that can happen has happened to us."

Cast member Chevy Chase left the series without even finishing up the current season, months after the show creator Dan Harmon was fired by "Community" distributor Sony Pictures Television. (Chase bolted with two episodes unfinished and according to cast members, doesn't appear at all in one of them.)

"It's always tough to lose people," said actress Alison Brie. "It's very strange and weird. So I can only imagine that coming back for a fifth season without Chevy would also be weird. But, luckily, it didn't affect us too much this season."

"Community" returned as a mid-season replacement in February for the first time without any involvement from creator Harmon.

"I think, as far as season four as a whole, I think the heart is still there," said actress Yvette Nicole Brown. "There's a lot of really great adventures to come. You guys haven't seen the best that this season has to offer yet, so I'm excited for you to see it."

This week's episode, airing Thursday, marks star Joel McHale's character, Jeff, meeting up with his long-lost father, played by actor James Brolin. Perhaps Brolin's real-life wife Barbra Streisand could play Jeff's mom?

"I don't think we could afford Babs," McHale replied. "I would love it. It was interesting listening to Jim say, 'My wife ...' (And McHale would say) 'Yeah, your wife is Barbra Streisand!' And he was just getting ready to go on tour with her. So, yeah, that would be pretty extraordinary. And what if Justin Bieber were my brother, and the cast of 'Twilight' were my cousins. Explosion!"

As usual, the future of "Community" is in question. Brie said a fifth season is by no means a given. The series' latest episodes have been clobbered in the ratings by its powerhouse competition, "The Big Bang Theory."

As for a possible series finale?

"If I had a super-wish list, it would be the biggest paintball (fight)," answered actor Jim Rash "like the world needs to be saved and only 'Community' can do it. That would be a good way to end."

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Online: www.paleycenter.org

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Follow Michael Cidoni Lennox on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeCLennox

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NEW YORK (AP) -- A new TV commercial features a good-looking young woman on a beach vacation lounging next to a good-looking young man. He bemoans the glare on his iPad and she fills him in on the Kindle Paperwhite's sun-friendly screen.

He clicks to buy one himself and suggests they celebrate with a drink.

"My husband's bringing me a drink right now," chirps she.

"So is mine," smiles he as they turn and wave at their male loved ones sitting together at a tiki bar.

Welcome to the latest in gay imagery in mainstream advertising, where LGBT people have been waiting for a larger helping of fairness, or at least something other than punchlines and cliches.

While there are still plenty of those, something has happened in advertising over the last two or three years, nearly two decades after Ikea broke ground in the U.S. with a TV spot featuring a gay couple shopping for a dining room table a spot that ran only once in New York and Washington, D.C., and was pulled after bomb threats to Ikea stores.

Today, gay and lesbian parents and their kids are featured along with pitchwoman Ellen DeGeneres in J.C. Penney ads. Same-sex couples have their own, advertised wedding registries at Macy's and elsewhere and President Barack Obama offered his seal of approval by evolving into a supporter of gay marriage.

Two happy young men sit together eating at a dining table, with wine and romantic candlelight, in a section of a Crate & Barrel catalog marked "Us & Always." And we made it through a Super Bowl without any gay jokes at commercial breaks like the Snickers ad of several years ago featuring two men freaking out after kissing by accident while eating one of the candy bars.

Traditionally lagging behind TV and film content in terms of LGBT inclusion, advertisers in this country are facing considerably less trouble than they used to when taking on gay themes, observers said. Penney's rebuffed critics and launched a lesbian-focused catalog ad for Mother's Day that the company followed with a two-dads family a real family for Father's Day.

DeGeneres, who married Portia de Rossi in 2008, continues as a CoverGirl in magazines. Also recently? A lesbian couple was treated to fireworks in a commercial real ones flash on screen for K-Y Intense, a personal lubricant that makes their moment or two more memorable. They're shown spent and satisfied in bed, hair tussled. "Good purchase," one says to the other.

Though Crate & Barrel declined comment for this story and Amazon didn't respond to email requests for the same about the Kindle ad, LGBT-focused marketers and monitors think the Mad Men and Women of today's Madison Avenue and the companies that employ them might finally be getting it. Now, they hope, a greater degree of diversity in skin tone and ethnicity will follow.

"They're no longer just targeting gay and lesbian people. They're targeting people like my mom, who want to know that a company embraces and accepts their gay and lesbian family members, friends and neighbors," said Rich Ferraro, a spokesman for the media watchdog group the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

Others, too, are celebrating the newfound bump in ad visibility, a mirror of cultural gains overall. It's a boost that comes as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up oral arguments later this month in key challenges that could lead to further recognition of same-sex marriage and spousal benefits.

Bob Witeck, who consults for Fortune 100 companies on LGBT marketing and communications strategies, put the buying power of U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults at $790 billion last year. He estimated, roughly, the U.S. LGBT adult population at 16 million, though others say their ranks could be as many as 25 million.

There's no demographic evidence or social science that points to the LGBT segment as notably higher earning or wealthier than anybody else, though they're often louder in protesting offensive ad messaging and loyal to brands and companies that support them.

"Things have changed significantly in terms of risk and reward," Witeck said. "Businesses don't view this as a risk model any longer."

Particularly, he said, when it comes to portraying marriage.

"Marriage, at one time, was the third rail," Witeck said. "That terrified companies. Most of this happened when the president said he supported marriage equality."

A consumer lust for "truth-telling" isn't lost on major advertisers, including those that once restricted themselves to trotting out gay-friendly fodder as one-offs when Pride Month and its multicolored flag flies freely each June. One recent pride standout in advertising, restricted to digital markets, is an Oreo cookie with a mountain of multicolored filling.

The company fielded queries from consumers who thought it was available for purchase in stores. It wasn't.

American Airlines, in 2010, ran outdoor advertising at bus stops and subway stations in New York showing two men on a beach with the slogan: "Here's to his and his beach towels.Proud to support the community that supports us."

Generally, Witeck said, putting a human face on gay couples and families in advertising is where much of the effort lands today.

"For the gay consumer and their families and friends, and lots and lots and lots of Americans, they expect to see those couples appear everywhere, but they don't want them trotted out with a pride flag," Witeck said. "Amazon didn't ballyhoo the message. They just landed it."

Mark Elderkin, CEO of the Gay Ad Network, which focuses on the LGBT niche market, said mainstream gay messaging has "passed the tipping point, where there's more to gain than there is to lose" for advertisers.

While there are groups of "vocal antagonists," he said more advertisers bolstered by broader media exposure for gay characters and storylines in non-ad content "The New Normal," ''Modern Family," ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show," CNN's out-of-the-closet anchor Anderson Cooper have explored non-traditional families and included LGBT imagery in "normal" settings.

"It seems to be moving quickly forward. It's companies that want to be more on the leading edge, more for the next generation of this country," Elderkin said. "It's not your parents' brand anymore. It's your brand and your kids' brand."

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

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HANOI (Reuters) - Pot-bellied, short, or abusive traffic policemen will be barred from working on the streets of Vietnam's capital and assigned desk jobs instead as Hanoi police try to clean up their unsavoury image, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The city's traffic police are following the worst offenders closely and compiling lists of those to be reassigned. All police on traffic duty will be made to carry a book on the code of conduct to remind them how to behave, the official Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper said.

"Little officers, or those with too big a belly will be moved to work in offices instead of guiding traffic and settling violations," Colonel Dao Vinh Thang, head of the Hanoi Traffic Police Department, was quoted by Tien Phong as saying.

He said five teams of inspectors had been sent to monitor the behaviour of police on the street. Thang could not be reached for additional comment.

Tempers often flare in the city of 7 million famous for constant streams of motorcycles and sometimes haphazard driving. Complaints have mounted about the conduct of traffic police, including allegations of corruption and abusive behaviour.

The latest initiative follows the deployment in January of female traffic police, all part of a campaign to improve the image of the security forces.

Crackdowns on overweight policemen have taken place in Thailand, Pakistan, Britain, Indonesia and the Philippines in recent years. Several of those countries ordered officers to get fit and lose weight before they could return to work.

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Martin Petty and Ron Popeski)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - At Shanghai's Zhabei District marriage registration center, officials divorced a record 53 couples in a single day this week - that's about one every five minutes - as couples rushed to untie the knot to avoid tougher tax laws on home sales.

There were similar scenes in Wuhan, Nanjing and Ningbo as married couples opted for 'quickie', uncontested divorces - costing just a few yuan - that would allow them to split ownership of their properties and sell without having to pay capital gains tax of as much as 20 percent.

Beijing last week signaled it wanted local governments to be tougher in implementing rules to curb property speculation - the tax on gains from selling second homes has been in place for almost two decades but never strictly enforced. Chinese tend to park much of their wealth in real estate as they have few other alternative investment options, and home prices in the biggest cities have risen for 9 straight months.

Reckoning that primary residences owned for more than five years will remain tax exempt, some couples hope that divorcing and dividing up real estate assets will allow them to sell properties as individuals, and not pay tax. Once the sale is complete, they can remarry.

"It's a practical attitude," said Li Li, managing director of International Strategic Group, a real estate consultancy in Shanghai. "It's strange, but policy forces people to do it."

While homeowners and prospective buyers await details on how the tightened property rules will be implemented, the official Shanghai Daily quoted one unnamed official at the Yangpu District registration office as saying the rise in divorces was driven by unapologetic tax evaders, including a pregnant woman.

"I told all of them to come here again for remarriage registration as soon as their transaction is finished," the official told the newspaper.

Requests for city-wide data from the Shanghai civil affairs bureau were not immediately answered. The Shanghai Daily quoted Lin Kewu, deputy director of the bureau's marriage administration, saying the government did not want to release statistics for fear of encouraging the tactic.

The phenomenon is not new. In 2010 and 2011, state media reported that couples resorted to forging divorce certificates so they could skirt restrictions and buy more property.

"I know people who have divorced to evade taxes," said one man who asked not to be named as he waited outside a real estate trade center in Pudong on Wednesday. "But I think marriage is more important than property."

(Additional reporting by Anita Li and Reuters Shanghai bureau; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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NEW YORK (AP) Valerie Harper, who played Rhoda Morgenstern on television's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spinoff, "Rhoda," has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

People magazine reported on its website Wednesday that the 73-year-old actress received the news on Jan. 15. Tests revealed she has leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare condition that occurs when cancer cells spread into the fluid-filled membrane surrounding the brain. The report says Harper's doctors have said she has as little as three months to live.

"I don't think of dying," Harper told the magazine in a cover interview. "I think of being here now."

Harper's character, Rhoda, was one of television's most beloved characters during the 1970s, and the tart-tongued, self-deprecating Rhoda made Harper a star. She won three consecutive Emmys (1971-73) as supporting actress on "Mary" plus another for outstanding lead actress for "Rhoda," which ran from 1974-78.

Harper began show business as a dancer in several Broadway musicals, and worked in summer stock and with the Second City improv group.

"I was a dancer but I was always a little overweight," she once told The Associated Press. "I'd say, 'Hello, I'm Valerie Harper and I'm overweight.' I'd say it quickly before they could. ... I always got called chubby, my nose was too wide, my hair was too kinky."

Accordingly, she played Rhoda at first as a plump, wisecracking contrast to slender, winsome Mary Richards. But as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" evolved, Rhoda trimmed down and her own brand of beauty was acknowledged.

The character was wildly popular and soon inspired her own CBS sitcom, which saw Rhoda moving back home to New York City and even getting married.

After her success on TV, she returned to theater. Several TV movie and feature films followed, including "Chapter Two" and "Blame It on Rio."

In 2000, she reunited with Moore in a TV film, "Mary and Rhoda."

"Rhoda Morgenstern gave a wonderful impetus and propulsion to my career," she told the AP in 2001.

At the time, she had stepped into the role originated by former "Alice" star Linda Lavin in the Broadway comedy "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife."

Harper played what she described as "an angst-ridden Woman of a Certain Age," and she likened that character to Rhoda, whose shared creed, she said, is "Get into life, and enjoy it. Just stop with the white knuckles and relax. Be OK with yourself."

In recent years, Harper had guest roles on several TV series, and in 2010 was back on Broadway playing Tallulah Bankhead, a flamboyant star from Hollywood's Golden Age.

AP Drama Critic Michael Kuchwara wrote that "Harper submerges the iconic Rhoda Morgenstern" and "has a ferocious sense of comic timing."

In January, Harper published a new memoir, "I, Rhoda."

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Online:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20679402,00.html

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LONDON (AP) Never say never again? Sam Mendes says he won't be directing the next James Bond film but may work on the series again in the future.

Mendes has been praised for his work on "Skyfall," the first Bond film to rake in more than $1 billion in revenue.

But Mendes says he has made the "very difficult decision" to focus on other projects "that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond." They include upcoming London stage productions of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "King Lear."

In comments published Wednesday by movie magazine Empire, Mendes said he was honored to have been part of the Bond family, "and very much hope I have a chance to work with them again."

Mendes worked in theater before turning to film. He won an Academy Award in 2000 for "American Beauty."

"Skyfall," which stars Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench, won two Oscars last month, including one for Adele's theme song.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) A bloody Western and the comedic tale of a trash-talking teddy bear lead nominees for the 2013 MTV Movie Awards.

MTV announced Tuesday that "Django Unchained" and "Ted" each have seven bids at the annual kudo-fest, set to air live on April 14 from the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, Calif.

"Silver Linings Playbook" earned six nominations and "The Dark Knight Rises" collected five. Other top nominees include "The Avengers," ''Skyfall," ''Pitch Perfect" and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."

Fans can vote online for the winners in all categories, including the two newest ones: Best shirtless performance and best musical moment.

Double nominee Rebel Wilson will host the show. She'll be joined by Will Ferrell, who will receive MTV's inaugural Comic Genius Award.

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Online:

www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2013/

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CHICAGO (AP) Can't get rid of that paunch?

A Chicago-area gym suggests working out with your pooch.

K9 Fit Club offers bow wow boot camps and other classes for people and their puppies to exercise together in Chicago and nearby Hinsdale, Ill.

The fitness center opened last year after founder Tricia Montgomery exercised with her dog and lost 130 pounds. Montgomery says her late basset hound, named Louie, lost 22 percent of his body weight.

Fans of the gym say classes are beneficial to both man and man's best friend.

Montgomery says dogs struggle with the same weight issues that people face, including heart problems and diabetes.

People who work out at K9 Fit Club say exercising with their dogs keeps them motivated.

Classes cost about $20.

Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/1687UdR

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Marvel Entertainment's renowned heroes find themselves in an unfamiliar and unsettling position in the pages of the just-released "Age of Ultron" series: defeated, demoralized and desperate.

After years of well-placed warnings that have gone unheeded, the ever-adaptive artificial intelligence that is Ultron a creation of Avengers co-founder Henry Pym has finally realized his potential as conquering villain. He has turned the planet into a dystopian landscape that is wrecked beyond compare with technology at the top of the food chain and humanity on the extinction trail.

In short, said Brian Michael Bendis, who wrote the series that debuted Wednesday, Ultron has lived up to his promise.

"Ultron is one of the big villains of the Marvel universe, up there with Dr. Doom and Magneto," he said this week. "He's been a threat a constant threat and they've never been able to defeat him because of the nature of his being."

Now, with Ultron's ability to adapt, react and learn, his promise has gone global and what was once a vibrant planet is nothing more than piles of debris with androids and mechanized robots running roughshod across the surface and heroes like Iron Man, the Sensational Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Invisible Woman and Hawkeye in the shadows.

It is, Bendis said, a reckoning of sorts with the Marvel universe "destroyed" and "half the heroes dead and half the world is dead."

Those that are left remnants of the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Hulks are living in the shadows, fighting back, Bendis said, and they aim to stop what happened from ever happening again.

"It's not an imaginary story. It's happening in Marvel continuity," he said of the tale, which has the first three issues out this month, followed by issues 4,5 and 6 in April, all illustrated by Bryan Hitch. The heroes "are going to break some rules with the space-time continuum."

The 10-issue story is illustrated by Bryan Hitch, Brandon Petersen and Carlos Pacheco, with a fourth artist that Marvel is keeping secret.

Tom Brevoort, senior vice president for publishing at Marvel and editor for "Age of Ultron," called the series one that will leave readers confused and, possibly, upset, too.

"Part of the ethos we're trying to adopt, as part of Marvel Now, is the idea that really, anything can happen and the sky is the limit," he said. "'Age of Ultron' is the exemplar of that. It's supposed to make people feel edgy and uncomfortable."

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Moore reported from Philadelphia. Follow him at www.twitter.com/mattmooreap.

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Marvel Entertainment is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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http://www.marvel.com

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