Celebrity Watch!

(CNN)Actor Bill Paxton, whose extensive career included films such as "Twister," "Aliens" and "Titanic," has died, a representative for his family said in a statement. He was 61.

"It is with heavy hearts we share the news that Bill Paxton has passed away due to complications from surgery," the statement said.

"Bill began his career in Hollywood working on films in the art department and went on to have an illustrious career spanning four decades as a beloved and prolific actor and filmmaker. ... We ask to please respect the family's wish for privacy as they mourn the loss of their adored husband and father."

Moments after news of Paxton's death broke, social media lit up with tributes to the versatile actor.In addition to more than 90 acting credits, Paxton was also a director on films such as "The Greatest Game Ever Played," and "Frailty."

Screenwriter Brian Lynch said Paxton was a talented director.

Bill Paxton: Filmmaking always my dream (2005)

"RIP Bill Paxton. great in everything, was the highlight of every movie he was in," Lynch tweeted. "Underrated director too."

Paxton's death came in the middle of his first season as Detective Frank Rourke in his last TV series, "Training Day."

But the entire season's episodes were already completed in December, CBS said Sunday.

It was not immediately clear what will happen to the series.

"We are shocked and deeply saddened this morning by the news of Bill Paxton's passing," CBS and Warner Bros. Television said in a joint statement. "All of us here offer our deepest sympathy to his wife, Louise, and his two children."

From Texas upbringing to Hollywood stardom

Paxton was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1955. He accidentally entered the national spotlight at age 8, when he went to see President John F. Kennedy visit Dallas on November 22, 1963.

A photo of Paxton hoisted above the crowd became a famous photo from the day of Kennedy's assassination.

Texas Supreme Court Judge Don Willett shared the photo and called Paxton a "good guy, great actor and proud Texan."

Growing up, Paxton became "a huge fan of Clint Eastwood's," he told CNN in 2005.

"I've never really gotten to know Clint. I've met him a couple of times, but he has no idea what a mentor he's been to me."

Paxton's career took off in the 1980s, with roles in "The Terminator," "Aliens" and "Near Dark."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who famously starred in "The Terminator," said his costar's best role wasn't actually on camera.

"Bill Paxton could play any role, but he was best at being Bill -- a great human being with a huge heart," Schwarzenegger tweeted.

In the '90s, Paxton played a police chief in "One False Move," an astronaut in "Apollo 13" and a storm chaser in "Twister."

Helen Hunt, who co-starred with Paxton in "Twister," said Paxton "acted his heart out."

But Paxton said he always wanted to make films, not just act in them.

"I've kind of modeled myself as a filmmaker/actor," he told CNN after directing "The Greatest Game Ever Played" in 2005.

"That was always my dream, to make films."

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Barbara Hale, the Emmy Award-winning actress who typified the ideal mid-20th-century secretary as the beautiful, loyal, confident but soft-spoken Della Street on the television series "Perry Mason," died on Thursday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 94.

Her death was confirmed by Jacqueline Stander, the agent for the actor William Katt, Ms. Hale's son.

Ms. Hale had been working in Hollywood for well over a decade when she was offered the supporting role on "Perry Mason," the CBS courtroom series starring Raymond Burr as an unbeatable criminal lawyer. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, with Della — Ms. Hale in classic businesslike fashions and her trademark short, dark hair — as a steadying and infinitely reliable presence, if not a constant one.

"Della wasn't really a very big role," Ms. Hale told the New Jersey newspaper The Record in 1986. "I had six days, six lines and six wardrobe changes a show. When I changed clothes, it signified another day had gone by in the script."

It was important enough, however, for Ms. Hale to receive the Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a dramatic series in 1959. In 1985 she and Burr were reunited for a television movie, "Perry Mason Returns," which won such high ratings that it led to 29 more TV movies starring the same characters.

Some viewers speculated about a possible romance between Perry and Della. Offscreen, Ms. Hale and Mr. Burr were close friends. An avid gardener, he even named an orchid for her.

After Mr. Burr died in 1993, three more films in the series were made, starring other actors. (They were known as "Perry Mason Mysteries," but the role of Perry Mason was not recast.) The last was "A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester" (1995), with Hal Holbrook and Ms. Hale. It was her last screen appearance.

Barbara Hale was born on April 18, 1922, in DeKalb, Ill., the younger of two daughters of Luther Ezra Hale, a horticulturist, and the former Willa Calvin. Two years later the family moved to nearby Rockford.

After graduating from Rockford High School, where she was May queen, Ms. Hale went to Chicago to study commercial art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Her dream job, she said years later, was to be an animator for the Disney studio. But at 19 she was spotted on a street corner by a models' agent, who found her work locally (one early job was posing for a comic strip) and was so impressed with his discovery that he sent her photographs to RKO Studios.

RKO offered her a train ticket to Hollywood and a six-month contract. Arriving in 1942, she made her film debut as "girl at party" in a 1943 courtroom comedy, "Gildersleeve's Bad Day," the second in a series of movies based on the popular radio series "The Great Gildersleeve." Her first credited role came later that year, in "Higher and Higher," a musical comedy with a cast that also included Frank Sinatra.

Over the next 15 years, Ms. Hale made more than three dozen mostly forgettable movies ("The Boy With Green Hair," in 1948, was an exception) and a score of guest appearances on television series. Then Perry Mason came into her life.

During the almost two decades between the end of the series and the beginning of the Perry Mason television movies, she did commercials for Amana appliances, made five films and guest appeared on a dozen or so television shows, including Adam-12 and her 1971 guest-starring role on Burr's next series, Ironside. She was Dean Martin's wife in "Airport" (1970) and appeared with Mr. Katt, her son, in the 1978 surfer film "Big Wednesday" and on his 1980s TV series, "The Greatest American Hero." (Mr. Katt also appeared in nine of the Perry Mason television movies.)

Ms. Hale married Bill Williams, a fellow RKO actor, in 1946, and they had three children. Mr. Williams, whose real surname was Katt, died in 1992. In addition to Mr. Katt, she is survived by two daughters, Jody and Juanita Katt; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and two half brothers.

She never seemed unhappy about being identified with one character throughout her career. In 1993 she told The Chicago Tribune that Della Street was "a woman who knew what everybody was thinking."

"She was informed and very observant of everything that went on," she continued. "That was my challenge as an actress, to be a necessary part of the office without being too aggressive."