This week: a teen star, a pioneering feminist writer and a young Brazilian footballer

THE actor Brad Bufanda, who has died aged 34, was best known for his role in the teen mystery drama Veronica Mars. The series followed a student who moonlights as a private investigator under the guidance of her detective father.

Bufanda was raised in Southern California, and after graduating from high school in 2001 moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. His first appearance on television was in the sitcom Roseanne in 1995.

A spell in the soap opera Days of Our Lives followed, as well as a supporting role in CSI: Miami and the comedy Malcolm In The Middle. Veronica Mars, which ran for two seasons, came along in 2004; it featured Kristen Bell in the title role.

Bufanda's manager Kirsten Solem confirmed that the actor had taken his own life. Solem said Bufanda had been reviving his career and had just completed two movies.

THE journalist and author Nancy Friday, who has died aged 84, became famous in the 1970s for My Secret Garden, a landmark compilation of women's sexual fantasies.

My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies, which contained explicit letters and interviews gathered by Friday, was published in 1973 and is widely regarded as the first major book to compile women's sexual fantasies. It was considered shocking, and was widely criticised, but it sold millions of copies and made Friday a celebrity. Her other books included Women On Top, Jealousy and Beyond My Control.

A Pittsburgh native who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, Friday was a graduate of Wellesley College and worked as a newspaper and magazine reporter and in public relations in the 1960s and '70s before the era's sexual revolution gave her the idea for a book which became My Secret Garden.

"I do think a lot of women are likely to begin fantasising after reading this book," Friday told The New York Times in 1973. "Or rather, become aware that they have been fantasising all along, and that these sudden odd ideas or notions they have up to now forgotten, or repressed, are indeed fantasies."

FOOTBALLER Dionatan Teixeira, who has died aged 25, was a former defender with Stoke, a team he joined in 2014 having had trials at a number of Premier League clubs including Manchester City.

The Brazilian-born player, who played twice for Stoke's first team after moving to the club, was registered with Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol at the time of his death.

After joining them in February he made 10 appearances as Sheriff won the Moldovan National Division title.

Teixeira also played for Kosice, Slovan Bratislava, Banik Ruzina and Dukla Banska Bystrica and made eight appearances for Fleetwood Town during a loan spell from Stoke in 2015.

Stoke City chief executive Tony Scholes said: "Dionatan was a hugely popular member of our squad and it's difficult to comprehend that he has passed away at such a young age."

A statement on the Sheriff Tiraspol website said Teixeira had travelled to his native Brazil in the summer and had been due to return to the club. No details were given about how he died.