In passing: Anita Roddick, Body Shop founder

Anita Roddick, founder of the international Body Shop cosmetics chain, died Monday. She was 64.

She died after suffering a brain hemorrhage, her family said.

Roddick, who died at a hospital in Chichester, had revealed in February that she contracted hepatitis C through a blood transfusion while giving birth to a daughter in 1971. She made the announcement after being named patron of the British charity Hepatitis C Trust.

The businesswoman was lauded as the “Queen of Green” for trailblazing business practices that sought to be environmentally friendly and won her renown in her native England and around the world.

Roddick opened her first Body Shop outlet in 1976 in Brighton, southern England, before fair trade and eco-friendly businesses were fashionable.

The company has grown into a global phenomenon with nearly 2,000 stores in 50 countries and remains independently run despite being owned by L’Oreal Group.

Roddick and her husband stepped down as co-chairmen of the company in 2002, but she continued to contribute as a consultant.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska

Augie Hiebert, broadcast pioneer

Augie Hiebert, a tireless broadcast pioneer who built Alaska’s first television station and mentored future generations of broadcasters, died Thursday. He was 90.

Hiebert had been feeling weak and was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, said family friend Al Bramstedt Jr., a fellow broadcaster. Hiebert died at an Anchorage hospital.

Fascinated by electronics, Hiebert built and licensed his first ham radio in Bend, Ore., at age 15.

He landed his first radio job in Wenatchee after graduating from high school, quickly moving on to a job as an announcer and engineer for a radio station in Bend. That job led him to Alaska when he followed a colleague who left in 1939 to build KFAR radio in Fairbanks.

He built Alaska’s first TV station – KTVA in Anchorage – in 1953, offering local news as well as popular entertainment programs and feature films. He brought television to Fairbanks two years later.

SAN FRANCISCO

Phil Frank, cartoonist

Political cartoonist Phil Frank, whose whimsical drawings graced the San Francisco Chronicle for three decades, died Wednesday. He was 64.

Frank died of a brain tumor at a hillside house with a view of his favorite ridge. A friend confirmed his death.

The Sausalito resident, who had just announced his retirement, spent his last days at a friend’s home in Bolinas. The creator of “The Elderberries” and “Farley” – one of the country’s last remaining regional comic strips – had been ill for several months, said his colleague and friend Carl Nolte.

Born in Pittsburgh in 1943, Frank entered seminary and intended to become a Jesuit priest before deciding on a commercial art career. At Michigan State University in the early 1960s, he responded to an ad in the student paper to draw daily political cartoons for $5 each – and his cartoons soon became syndicated at numerous college papers, according to the Chronicle.

LOGANVILLE, Ga.

Bobby Byrd, musician

Bobby Byrd, longtime collaborator with the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and co-founder of the Famous Flames, has died. He was 73.

Byrd died Wednesday at his home near Atlanta, according to the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home. News accounts attributed Byrd’s death to cancer.

One of the chief architects of Brown’s trademark sound, Byrd’s contributions can be heard on early Brown soul tracks and on hits that laid the foundations of funk, such as “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine.” The punctuating phrase “Get on up,” which repeats throughout that song, was sung by Byrd.

Brown, who was born and raised in poverty, was serving a sentence in a north Georgia reform school for breaking into cars when he met Byrd, and Byrd’s family arranged to take Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his gospel group. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

Byrd stayed with the Famous Flames, and the JBs after that, until 1973. Byrd performed at the James Brown Arena in Augusta during Brown’s memorial service in December.