Film Historian, Robert Osborne Dies at 84

Film historian Robert Osborne, the effervescent primetime host of Turner Classic Movies since the cabler’s inception in 1994, has died at age 84.

Osborne was an irrepressible advocate for the films of Hollywood’s golden era who wrote the Motion Picture Academy-sanctioned “50 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards” in 1978 and a number of updates ending in 2008 with “80 Years of the Oscar.”