PASSINGS: Larry D. Mann, Dennis Johnson

Larry D. Mann

Canadian character

actor, TV announcer

Larry D. Mann, 91, a veteran actor who voiced Yukon Cornelius in the animated Christmas favorite “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” died of age-related causes Monday in Los Angeles, said his son, Richard Mann.

Mann, a Canadian-born actor and TV announcer, played the role of the hearty prospector in the Christmas TV special first broadcast in 1964.

Since the 1950s, Mann did voice work for other animated shows, had small roles in movies, including “The Sting” and “In the Heat of the Night,” and appeared in dozens of TV series including “Gunsmoke,” “Bewitched” and “Hill Street Blues.”

In Canada, he was known as the boss in Bell Canada TV commercials.

Dennis Johnson

Showtime executive

began as NBC page

Dennis Johnson, 68, a retired television executive who began his career as an NBC page and rose to become senior vice president of programming for Showtime, died Dec. 23 after suffering a heart attack while vacationing in St. Barthelemy, West Indies, according to his partner, Russ Patrick. Johnson lived in Beverly Hills and Montecito.

He was born Jan. 18, 1945, in Kenbridge, Va., and attended Temple University and UCLA, Patrick said. While studying at UCLA in the 1970s, Johnson began working at NBC as a page, then climbed the production ladder as an associate producer before moving into the programming department.

In the mid-1970s, he joined ABC and became vice president of variety programs, then left to become senior vice president of Osmond Television Co. He moved to Showtime in 1984 as the cable channel’s director of current programming and was promoted to senior vice president of programming.

Johnson also served as president of the National Assn. of Minorities in Cable in the mid-1990s.

Times staff and wire reports

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