Alexander Astin, the dean of modern higher-education research, who is now an emeritus professor at U.C.

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Celebrities have even joined the Save COH movement, including author Mercedes Lackey (in a huge role), Jim Butcher, Neil Gaiman, Felicia Day, Sean Astin and more.

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Mr. SEAN ASTIN: (as Mikey Walsh) Goonies never say die!

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They are not deluded: a study carried out back in the nineteen-nineties (by Alexander Astin, as it happens) found that faculty commitment to teaching is negatively correlated with compensation.

NEWYORKER: Live and Learn

The investigator testified that after Astin died in a car wreck in 1990, he left a business card at the home of Asti's widow but "had never spoken to her, " the papers said.

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Joseph Astin, who had died in a 1990 car accident, had been possible suspect before: Scarcella had brought the courier to the morgue in hopes that he could identify Astin as the gunman, but he couldn't.

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At first it was exciting to meet people like Patty Duke and husband John Astin, Donald Sutherland, Hank Aaron, the entire Chicago Bulls team, Leonard Nimoy, novelist Ray Bradbury, a few comedians and lots and lots of politicians.

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New York Police Department detective Louis Scarcella claimed at a 1995 appeals hearing that he "engaged in numerous investigative steps" to check out Astin, but couldn't produce any paperwork to show that, according to the prosecutor's recent court papers.

WSJ: Questions linger in 1990 murder of rabbi in NYC

"Frodo lives, " declared the flower children's buttons in the 1960s, but everyone here lives vividly, from Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, Ian McKellen's Gandalf, Orlando Bloom's Legolas, Sean Astin's Sam and Elijah Wood's Frodo to Miranda Otto's radiant Lady Eowyn, who delivers, with joyous understatement, the movie's most rousing line: "I am no man!"

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