William A. Wilson, Reagan confidant

Carmel Valley, Calif. – William A. Wilson, a Los Angeles businessman and a member of President Ronald Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet” who was appointed the first U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, has died. He was 95.

Wilson died early Saturday in Carmel Valley, Calif., where he had a home.

The businessman met Reagan and his wife at a dinner party in the early 1960s, when the future politician was first and foremost an actor. Wilson was a member of the inner circle of wealthy advisers who persuaded Reagan to run for California governor in 1966 then helped guide his political campaigns.

In 1981, soon after he was sworn in as president, Reagan named Wilson, a Catholic convert and regular churchgoer, as his personal envoy to the Vatican. The United States had not had formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See since 1867.

Paula Hawkins, Florida politician

Orlando, Fla. – Paula Hawkins, who in 1980 became the first woman elected to a full Senate term without a family political connection, died Friday. She was 82.

Hawkins had been in poor health recently, having suffered a stroke and a fall.

During her single six-year term in the U.S. Senate, the Republican positioned herself as a media-savvy champion of children and working mothers and an enemy of drug dealers. She lost her bid for a second term in 1986 to then-Gov. Bob Graham.

Marc Christian, Hudson partner

Los Angeles – Marc Christian MacGinnis, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement in 1991 from the estate of his ex-lover, actor Rock Hudson, after convincing a jury Hudson had knowingly exposed him to AIDS, is dead. He was 56.

Known as Marc Christian, he died June 2 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank of pulmonary problems.

The details were confirmed Friday by his sister, Susan Dahl, who said she did not publicly announce his death earlier because of her brother’s wish for privacy.

Christian, who went by his mother’s maiden name, made headlines in 1985 when he sued Hudson’s estate and his secretary, Mark Miller, for $10 million, alleging that he had suffered severe emotional distress after hearing on a news broadcast that the former matinee idol and television star had AIDS.

Christian tested negative for acquired immune deficiency syndrome several times after learning of Hudson’s diagnosis but contended that the star put him at risk of contracting the disease by concealing his illness and continuing to have sexual relations with him.

Liam Clancy, Irish singer

Dublin – Irish balladeer Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers troupe whose feisty, boozy songs of old Ireland struck a sentimental chord worldwide, died Friday in a Cork hospital. He was 74.

Clancy died in his hospital bed flanked by his wife Kim and daughters Siobhan and Fiona. He suffered for years with incurable pulmonary fibrosis, the same lung-destroying disease that claimed one of his older singing brothers, Bobby, in 2002.

At his last public performance in May, he moved a Dublin audience to tears as he struggled to complete a 40-minute set and turned to reciting poetry.

Ireland’s arts minister, Martin Cullen, led nationwide tributes to Clancy, praising his “superb singing, warm voice and gift for communicating in a unique storytelling style.”