Don Mitchell Dead at 70

Don Mitchell, an actor best known for his regular role on the original IRONSIDE series, died in Encino on Sunday, December 8 of natural causes at age 70.

He played Mark Sanger, the aide and bodyguard to Raymond Burr's wheelchair-using title character, in the NBC drama that ran from 1967 to 1975.

A native of Houston who attended UCLA, Mitchell starred opposite Pam Grier in the sequel Scream Blacula Scream in 1973, playing an ex-police officer with an interest in the occult.

He also appeared on such TV shows as I DREAM OF JEANNIE, THE FUGITIVE, WONDER WOMAN, MCMILLAN & WIFE and MATLOCK..

In daytime, Mitchell played Ed Lawrence on the CBS soap opera CAPITOL in 1985-86.

Mitchell was married to actress Judy Pace, who played Vickie in PEYTON PLACE, from 1972-86. Their daughter, Julia Pace Mitchell, starred as Sofia Dupre Winters in THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS from 2010-12.

NEWS: Is "Spoiler Alert" Overused? Plus, Daniel Coonan, Julia Pace Mitchell, PLL's Social Media Success

Spoiler Alert: Phrase Is Overused
A graph from the “Chronicle” tool — created by my colleague Alexis Lloyd to track use of words and phrases in The Times — shows the history of the phrase “spoiler alert.”

This colloquial, even cutesy, phrase became popular some years back in online discussions of movies, books and TV, as a courtesy to alert a reader if a plot twist was about to be revealed. But as the graph suggests, we’ve become infatuated with it in the last few years, and we’re on track for a record this year. The expression has spread far beyond its original purpose, and now often seems like an all-purpose plea for attention: Hey! I’m about to tell you something interesting! In most cases it does nothing to actually alert the reader, since the “spoiler” is often the very next phrase.

Daniel Coonan joins EASTENDERS
New EASTENDERS arrival Carl White (Daniel Coonan) will waste no time in threatening an Albert Square resident next week.

Carl is the ex-boyfriend of Kirsty Branning (Kierston Wareing) and a former cellmate of the late Derek Branning (Jamie Foreman).

He has come to Albert Square in search of Derek's missing £10,000, which he feels belongs to him.

It does not take Carl long to discover that Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) stole the cash in order to set up his new restaurant.

He then sets off to find Ian to explain to him the error of his ways.

The scenes will air on BBC One and RTÉ One on Thursday June 20.

Y&R's Julia Pace Mitchell welcomes son, Stephen L. Hightower III
“Being new parents has brought us closer together, it’s all about teamwork,” Pace Mitchell tells PEOPLE. “Little Stephen is awesome. Being a mom is the greatest role I will ever play.”

The true sign of PRETTY LITTLE LIARS success is in social media
The spring finale, which ended on a cliffhanger when the girls found something in a car trunk, was the first episode of a TV series to generate more than 1 million tweets in the hour it was broadcast, according to SocialGuide, which analyzes Twitter conversations related to television programs.

That kind of interactivity has helped make PRETTY LITTLE LIARS ABC Family's most-popular series ever (3.8 million viewers during its spring run), up 39% compared with the previous spring (and up 43% in its core audience of females ages 12-34).

In social-media activity involving that young female demographic, PLL trails only THE WALKING DEAD for the season. For the first quarter of 2013, it helped ABC Family attract the largest number of unique social-media users of any entertainment cable network. (Season to season, however, the network is down 6% in viewers and 9% in the target audience of young women.)