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PASSINGS: Murray Rose, Tippy Dye, Garry Walberg

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Murray Rose

Swimmer won Olympic gold medals

Murray Rose, 73, a four-time Olympic gold medal swimmer from Australia who also competed at USC while studying acting in the late ‘50s, died Sunday in Sydney of leukemia, Swimming Australia said.

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Rose became a national hero at 17 after winning three gold medals at the 1956 Melbourne Games, in the 400- and 1,500-meter freestyle events and the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. Four years later, in Rome, he won the 400 freestyle, took silver in the 1,500 freestyle and bronze in the 4x200 freestyle relay.

He set 15 world records, including marks in the 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles.

Born Jan. 6, 1939, Iain Murray Rose and his family moved from England to Australia shortly after World War II. He began swimming as a child.

After the Melbourne Olympics, Rose moved to the United States to attend USC, where he swam competitively and studied drama and television before graduating in 1962.

Rose adhered to a vegan lifestyle during his career, earning the nickname “the Seaweed Streak.”

He appeared on Groucho Marx’s radio program “You Bet Your Life” and was a guest on the TV show “To Tell the Truth” in the 1950s. He also appeared in the 1964 movie “Ride the Wild Surf.”

Tippy Dye

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Star athlete became college coach, athletic director

Tippy Dye, 97, a star football, basketball and baseball player at Ohio State University in the 1930s who went on to a successful career as a college coach and athletic director, guiding the University of Washington men’s basketball team to their only NCAA Final Four appearance in 1953, died Wednesday at an assisted living facility in Grass Valley, Calif.

Born April 1, 1915, in Harrisonville, Ohio, William Henry Harrison Dye was named after the country’s ninth president, a general and hero in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe.

Dye’s athletic career began in 1933 as a three-sport standout at Ohio State. At 5 feet 7 and 135 pounds, he quarterbacked the Buckeyes to three straight wins over rival Michigan and was an all-Big Ten football and basketball player.

After serving three years in the Navy during World War II, he returned to Ohio State, where he coached the Buckeyes’ basketball team for three years.

He took over at Washington in 1951 and won three Pacific Coast Conference titles in his first three years. During the 1952-53 season, Dye guided the Huskies to a 28-3 record and a third-place finish in the NCAA tournament. Six years later, he left Washington with a 156-91 record, fourth on Washington’s all-time win list.

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He became athletic director at Wichita State, Nebraska and Northwestern before retiring in 1974.

Garry Walberg, 90, a character actor best known for playing Lt. Frank Monahan on the NBC crime drama “Quincy, M.E.” from 1976 to 1983, died March 27 at an assisted-living facility in Northridge of chronic pulmonary obstructive disease and congestive heart failure, his family said. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Walberg had dozens of TV appearances from the early 1950s to the ‘90s on such series as “Rawhide,” “Star Trek,” “The Fugitive,” “Peyton Place,” “Lassie,” “Gunsmoke” and “The Odd Couple.”

— Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com

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