This week: a star of Cheers, a great of Irish rugby and a pioneer of wilderness conservation

THE actor Jay Thomas, who has died of cancer aged 69, was probably best know for his recurring role on the hit US sitcom Cheers – he played Eddie LeBec, the former-hockey-player husband of barmaid Carla. Later, he became known as a talk show host in America and a regular guest on the Late Show With David Letterman.

Born John Thomas Terrell in Kermit, Texas, he began his radio career as a sports announcer for high school football and college basketball while attending schools including Gulf Coast College and Jacksonville University to earn bachelor's and master's degrees.

His radio experience led to stand-up comedy gigs and eventually acting on stage and TV.

In 1979, he was cast on the sitcom Mork & Mindy in the supporting role of delicatessen owner Remo DaVinci.

He starred for three seasons in the sitcom Love & War as a sports writer romancing the woman who owned his favourite sports bar and made many guest appearances on comedy and drama series, most recently on NCIS: New Orleans and Bones.

His films roles include Mr Holland's Opus and the second and third Santa Clause films.

THE rugby player Willie Duggan, who has died aged 67, was widely regarded as one of Ireland's best players, making 41 appearances for his country between 1975 and 1984.

He toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions in 1977, playing in all four Tests as the All Blacks won the series 3-1.

Duggan latterly ran Willie Duggan Lighting Ltd, based in Kilkenny.

He was, along with Wales' Geoff Wheel, the first player to be sent off in a Five Nations match in 1977.

Both men were sent off by referee Norman Sanson for fighting following a lineout during the game at Cardiff Arms Park.

Wheel recalled some time later: "I wasn't involved with Willie Duggan at all. I didn't even see what he was supposed to have done. We even had a bit of a laugh about it on the sideline.

"We definitely got the best of it. He was having a really good game at the back of the line-out. Willie was a great character and an exceptionally good player.

"I don't know what he got sent off for but they ended up losing their best player and we won the game easily enough."

THE politician Cecil D Andrus, who has died aged 85, was a former US interior secretary who engineered the conservation of millions of acres of Alaska land during the Carter administration.

A one-time lumberjack, Mr Andrus resigned midway through his second term as Idaho governor in 1977 to become President Jimmy Carter's secretary of the Interior Department and served until Mr Carter's term ended in 1981.

Mr Carter declared permanent national monuments on 56 million acres in Alaska in 1978. Despite criticism from many Alaskans, Mr Andrus ordered protection of an additional 52 million acres of public lands in the state the same year.

His conservation efforts earned him the praise of environmental groups but the rancour of many Alaskans who depended upon resources extracted from public lands for their livelihoods. A popular bumper sticker on Alaskan pick-up trucks proclaimed "Lock up Andrus, not Alaska".

In a 2003 speech, Mr Andrus criticised the much-debated proposal to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "It is a place that is so fragile it takes 100 square miles for a grizzly bear to forage," he said. "It takes 50 years for a tree to grow."

The outdoors was Mr Andrus's passion and power-politics never suited him, even if he was considered adept at it. He liked to brag that after leaving the interior post, he never spent more than one night in Washington DC again.

Mr Andrus was born in 1931, in Hood River, Oregon, and attended Oregon State University but did not graduate before he served in the navy during the Korean War.

He returned to Oregon to work as a logger and then moved with his family in 1955 to Orofino in northern Idaho to work at his father's sawmill. After the sawmill closed, he entered the insurance business.

His 35-year political career began when he arrived late at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Orofino to discover his beer-drinking buddies had decided to nominate him to run for the Legislature.

In 1960, aged 29, he defeated a Republican incumbent and was elected to the first of three two-year terms as a state senator before an unsuccessful 1966 bid for governor. He returned to the state Senate in 1968.