In passing: Robert Clark, film director

Film director Robert Clark, best known for the holiday classic “A Christmas Story,” was killed with his son Wednesday in a head-on crash with a vehicle steered into the wrong lane by a drunken driver, police and the filmmaker’s assistant said.

Clark, 67, and son Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, were killed in the crash in Pacific Palisades, said Lyne Leavy, Clark’s personal assistant. The driver of the other car was under the influence of alcohol and was driving without a license, said Lt. Paul Vernon, a police spokesman.

Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career. His breakout success came in 1981 with “Porky’s.”

PORT HUENEME, Calif.

Jay Koch, Reagan look-alike

Jay Koch, a former New York police officer who doubled as a look-alike for former President Ronald Reagan in movies and public appearances, has died. He was 81.

Koch, who had been battling cancer, died March 19 of heart failure at his Port Hueneme home, his daughter Maureen Foster said.

Koch, who perfected the Gipper’s aw-shucks smile, portrayed Reagan in “Back to the Future Part II” and “Hot Shots! Part Deux” and was a fixture at special events at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

Koch’s wife, Sylvia, submitted his photo without his knowledge to a National Enquirer look-alike contest in 1980, and he won.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

Ian Tapson, WWII soldier

Ian Tapson, one of the last survivors of a team of World War II soldiers that planned a breakout from a German POW camp later immortalized in the film “The Great Escape,” has died. He was 84.

Tapson died Sunday at a retirement complex in the coastal town of Port Alfred on March 31, said Wally Vandermeulen, chairman of the Port Alfred branch of the South Africa Air Force Association.

Tapson was not among those who escaped, Vandermeulen said. He survived in the camp until its liberation.

The escape was depicted in Paul Brickhill’s book “The Great Escape” and in the movie of the same title, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough.

Honolulu

Tosiwo Nakayama, Micronesian leader

Tosiwo Nakayama, who as the first president of the Federated States of Micronesia helped his country emerge from U.S. control, has died. He was 75.

Nakayama died Thursday at the Hawaii Medical Center West in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, Micronesian officials said Tuesday. No cause of death was given, but Bethwel Henry, postmaster general of Micronesia and a former legislative colleague, said Nakayama had been ill.

“We consider him our George Washington,” said Tadao Sigrah, the Micronesian consul general in Honolulu who was a former member of Nakayama’s presidential staff.