In Passing

Livingston, Calif.

Joseph Gallo, cheesemaker

Joseph Edward Gallo Jr., who broke from his winemaking family to make cheese and then waged a high-profile spat with his famous brothers over use of the Gallo name, has died.

Gallo, 87, died Feb. 17 of a longtime illness.

Gallo was the youngest brother in a family of winemakers. His two older brothers, Ernest and Julio Gallo, would later start E&J Gallo Winery.

In 1979, Gallo built his first dairy with 4,000 milking cows. He followed it with four more and began marketing a line of cheeses with his full name – a move that caused a rift with his brothers.

They sued Joseph Gallo in 1986 to stop using the Gallo name, and the youngest brother countered with a claim that the brothers owed him a third of their winery because they had used their inheritance to launch the business.

Joseph Gallo lost the legal battle and changed the name of his business to “Joseph Farms,” a company that now employs about 500 full-time workers at five dairies and a cheese plant.

Los Angeles

Al Viola, Sinatra guitarist

Al Viola, a versatile guitarist best known for his long association with Frank Sinatra and his memorable mandolin playing on “The Godfather” soundtrack, has died. He was 87.

Viola died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles’ Studio City neighborhood.

Sinatra, with whom Viola worked for about 25 years on recordings, TV specials, Las Vegas appearances and concerts, offered his own distinctive praise of Viola during a concert at the Lido in Paris in 1962, which can be heard on the 1994 CD “Sinatra and Sextet: Live in Paris.”

After finishing a free-form vocal-guitar duet of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” with Viola, Sinatra called him “one of the world’s great guitarists. … I think he plays beautifully. As a matter of fact, if you weren’t looking at him, you’d swear he was an octopus.”

As a studio musician, Viola appeared on more than 500 albums with artists such as Julie London, Steve Lawrence, Marvin Gaye, Neil Diamond, Linda Ronstadt and Natalie Cole.

In addition to being the solo mandolinist who performed the classic “Godfather” theme, he played on numerous TV and film soundtracks, including “West Side Story,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Blazing Saddles.”

Berlin

L.G. Buchheim, ‘Das Boot’ author

Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, the German author and art collector best known for his autobiographical novel “Das Boot,” has died at the age of 89, his museum and the office of the governor of Bavaria said.

Buchheim died late Thursday from heart failure.

Buchheim was acclaimed for his works of fiction and nonfiction, including several about his World War II patrol aboard the German submarine U-96 in the Atlantic Ocean in 1941. He crafted that experience into the novel “Das Boot,” or “The Boat,” which was published in 1973 and carried an underlying anti-war message.

In 1981, the book was turned into an acclaimed German film starring Juergen Prochnow that detailed the hopelessness of war and its effect on sailors living in the cramped confines of their submarine.