Jack Cato, Lloyd Bentsen die

If it's true that celebrity deaths happen in threes, look for another local political figure to keel over at any moment: The first two, Harris County Treasurer Jack Cato and former U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, have paved the way.

Cato, a former newsman and HPD spokesman, died yesterday of heart failure while undergoing tests on his heart at St. Luke's Hospital. Cato was born in Chicago in 1935 and came to Houston in the 1950s. He worked as a TV reporter for KPRC for 25 years, then served as a spokesman for the police department from 1995 to 1998. During his time as a reporter, Cato earned quite a reputation for covering Houston's crime scene: Mass murderer Elmer Wayne Henley confessed while calling his mom on Cato's car phone, and in 1978, Cato was stabbed in the back during the Moody Park riot — and he gave an interview from his hospital bed not long afterward. KPRC's Phil Archer called Cato "one of the finest men I've ever known. He was kind of like the embodiment of Will Rogers. I don't think he ever met anybody he didn't like and I don't think there was anyone who didn't like Jack."

Bentsen, born in 1921 in Mission, flew with the Air Force during World War II, then served for eight years as a county judge and U.S. representative from South Texas. From 1954 to 1970, Bentsen worked in finance in Houston, but he quit that job to run for a seat in the Senate in 1970, beating future president George H.W. Bush. After being re-elected to the Senate in 1976, 1982 and 1988, Bentsen became Michael Dukakis's running mate in the 1988 presidential election — during which he famously told veep opponent Dan Quayle, "Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy." Bentsen resigned from the Senate in 1993 and served as secretary of the Treasury from 1993 to 1994, after which he retired to his home in Houston. He died at home this morning.