Obituaries
This page lists the obituaries of people who made news during their lifetimes. Obituaries of historians can be found here.
SOURCE: NYT(3-27-11)
Geraldine A. Ferraro, the former Queens congresswoman who strode onto a podium in 1984 to accept the Democratic nomination for vice president and to take her place in American history as the first woman nominated for national office by a major party, died Saturday in Boston.
She was 75 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, her family said in a statement. She died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had been undergoing treatment since Monday.
“If we can do this, we can do anything,” Ms. Ferraro declared on a July evening to a cheering Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. And for a moment, for the Democratic Party and for an untold number of American women, anything seemed possible: a woman occupying the second-highest office in the land, a derailing of the Republican juggernaut led by President Ronald Reagan, a President Walter F. Mondale.
It did not turn out that way — not by a long shot. After the roars in the Moscone Center had subsided and a fitful general election campaign had run its course, hopes for Mr. Mondale and his plain-speaking, barrier-breaking running mate were buried in a Reagan landslide....
She was 75 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for 12 years, her family said in a statement. She died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had been undergoing treatment since Monday.
“If we can do this, we can do anything,” Ms. Ferraro declared on a July evening to a cheering Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. And for a moment, for the Democratic Party and for an untold number of American women, anything seemed possible: a woman occupying the second-highest office in the land, a derailing of the Republican juggernaut led by President Ronald Reagan, a President Walter F. Mondale.
It did not turn out that way — not by a long shot. After the roars in the Moscone Center had subsided and a fitful general election campaign had run its course, hopes for Mr. Mondale and his plain-speaking, barrier-breaking running mate were buried in a Reagan landslide....
2011-03-28 08:43
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SOURCE: NYT(3-23-11)
Elizabeth Taylor, the actress who dazzled generations of moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamour, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79.
A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Ms. Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Pacific time. Her publicist, Sally Morrison, said the cause was complications of congestive heart failure. Ms. Taylor had had a series of medical setbacks over the years and was hospitalized six weeks ago with heart problems.
In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.
In a career of some 70 years and more than 50 films, she won two Academy Awards as best actress, for her performances as a call girl in “BUtterfield 8” (1960) and as the acid-tongued Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). Mike Nichols, who directed her in “Virginia Woolf,” said he considered her “one of the greatest cinema actresses.”...
A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Ms. Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Pacific time. Her publicist, Sally Morrison, said the cause was complications of congestive heart failure. Ms. Taylor had had a series of medical setbacks over the years and was hospitalized six weeks ago with heart problems.
In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.
In a career of some 70 years and more than 50 films, she won two Academy Awards as best actress, for her performances as a call girl in “BUtterfield 8” (1960) and as the acid-tongued Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). Mike Nichols, who directed her in “Virginia Woolf,” said he considered her “one of the greatest cinema actresses.”...
2011-03-24 09:49
SOURCE: NYT(3-19-11)
Warren M. Christopher, the courtly and reserved secretary of state in President Bill Clinton’s first term and the chief negotiator for the 1981 release of American hostages in Iran, died on Friday night in Los Angeles. He was 85 and lived in Los Angeles.
O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, announced his death, saying he had been ill with kidney and bladder cancer.
Methodical and self-effacing, Mr. Christopher alternated for nearly five decades between top echelons of both the federal government and legal and political life in California. He served as the Carter administration’s point man with Congress in winning ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, presided over the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and conducted repeated negotiations involving the Middle East and the Balkans.
At home, Mr. Christopher investigated racial unrest in Detroit and in the Watts district of Los Angeles and later headed a 1991 commission that proposed major reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department after riots prompted by the beating of a black driver, Rodney King.
As a political operative, he headed Mr. Clinton’s 1992 search committee for a vice-presidential running mate, settling on Al Gore, and subsequently directed the transition team of the president-elect, acting as an establishment counterweight on a team dominated by Arkansans new to the national scene. Eight years later, when Mr. Gore was running for president, he directed the search resulting in the selection of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman for the second spot on the Democratic ticket....
O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm where Mr. Christopher was a senior partner, announced his death, saying he had been ill with kidney and bladder cancer.
Methodical and self-effacing, Mr. Christopher alternated for nearly five decades between top echelons of both the federal government and legal and political life in California. He served as the Carter administration’s point man with Congress in winning ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, presided over the normalization of diplomatic relations with China and conducted repeated negotiations involving the Middle East and the Balkans.
At home, Mr. Christopher investigated racial unrest in Detroit and in the Watts district of Los Angeles and later headed a 1991 commission that proposed major reforms of the Los Angeles Police Department after riots prompted by the beating of a black driver, Rodney King.
As a political operative, he headed Mr. Clinton’s 1992 search committee for a vice-presidential running mate, settling on Al Gore, and subsequently directed the transition team of the president-elect, acting as an establishment counterweight on a team dominated by Arkansans new to the national scene. Eight years later, when Mr. Gore was running for president, he directed the search resulting in the selection of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman for the second spot on the Democratic ticket....
2011-03-22 09:11
SOURCE: NYT(3-21-11)
Pinetop Perkins, the boogie-woogie piano player who worked in Muddy Waters’s last great band and was among the last surviving members of the first generation of Delta bluesmen, died on Monday at his home in Austin, Tex. He was 97.
His death was confirmed by Hugh Southard, his agent for the last 15 years.
From his days in the groups of Waters and the slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk to the vigorous solo career he fashioned over the last 20 years, Mr. Perkins’s accomplishments were numerous and considerable. His longevity as a performer was remarkable — all the more so considering his fondness for cigarettes and alcohol; by his own account he began smoking at age 9 and didn’t quit drinking until he was 82. Few people working in any popular art form have been as prolific in the ninth and tenth decades of their lives....
His death was confirmed by Hugh Southard, his agent for the last 15 years.
From his days in the groups of Waters and the slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk to the vigorous solo career he fashioned over the last 20 years, Mr. Perkins’s accomplishments were numerous and considerable. His longevity as a performer was remarkable — all the more so considering his fondness for cigarettes and alcohol; by his own account he began smoking at age 9 and didn’t quit drinking until he was 82. Few people working in any popular art form have been as prolific in the ninth and tenth decades of their lives....
2011-03-22 08:21
SOURCE: NYT(3-15-11)
Donny George, an esteemed Iraqi archaeologist who tried to stop the looters ransacking the Iraq National Museum after the invasion of 2003, then led in recovering thousands of stolen artifacts in the ensuing years, died on Friday in Toronto. He was 60.
His friend Gwendolen Cates said he had a heart attack in the Toronto airport.
Dr. George fled Iraq in 2006 because of threats to his family. He was also angry that Iraq’s post-invasion politicians seemed interested mainly in archaeology pertaining to the Islamic conquest in the seventh century and its aftermath. His passions were the older civilizations of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians. He directed a major excavation of Babylon.
“I can no longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry,” he said in an interview with The Guardian in Britain. “They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of antiquities.”...
His friend Gwendolen Cates said he had a heart attack in the Toronto airport.
Dr. George fled Iraq in 2006 because of threats to his family. He was also angry that Iraq’s post-invasion politicians seemed interested mainly in archaeology pertaining to the Islamic conquest in the seventh century and its aftermath. His passions were the older civilizations of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians. He directed a major excavation of Babylon.
“I can no longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry,” he said in an interview with The Guardian in Britain. “They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of antiquities.”...
2011-03-15 10:03
SOURCE: NYT(3-9-11)
David S. Broder, who skillfully straddled the line between commentary and reportage for more than four decades as a political correspondent and columnist for The Washington Post and who spread his influence on television as a Sunday morning pundit, died on Wednesday in Arlington, Va. He was 81. The cause was complications of diabetes, The Post reported.
Mr. Broder, whose last column was published on Feb. 6, was often called the dean of the Washington press corps and just as often described as a reporter’s reporter, a shoe-leather guy who always got on one more airplane, knocked on one more door, made one more phone call. He would travel more than 100,000 miles a year to write more than a quarter-million words. In short, he composed first drafts of history for an awful lot of history.
Mr. Broder’s profile was national: his column was syndicated, and he made more guest appearances on “Meet the Press” than any other journalist. His writing life spanned 11 White House administrations, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second term, and his career as an observer of Congress was longer than Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s tenure as a member of it. Indeed, he covered Mr. Kennedy from before his first election in 1962 through his struggle with cancer and death....
Mr. Broder, whose last column was published on Feb. 6, was often called the dean of the Washington press corps and just as often described as a reporter’s reporter, a shoe-leather guy who always got on one more airplane, knocked on one more door, made one more phone call. He would travel more than 100,000 miles a year to write more than a quarter-million words. In short, he composed first drafts of history for an awful lot of history.
Mr. Broder’s profile was national: his column was syndicated, and he made more guest appearances on “Meet the Press” than any other journalist. His writing life spanned 11 White House administrations, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second term, and his career as an observer of Congress was longer than Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s tenure as a member of it. Indeed, he covered Mr. Kennedy from before his first election in 1962 through his struggle with cancer and death....
2011-03-10 09:19
SOURCE: NYT(3-7-11)
HAVANA — Alberto Granado Jiménez, the Argentine biochemist who accompanied the young Che Guevara on his formative odyssey across South America, died here on Saturday. He was 88.
Mr. Granado, who settled in Cuba in 1961, died of natural causes, according to Cuban state television. His ashes were to be scattered in Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela, a state newscast said.
Mr. Granado was born in the Argentine town of Hernando on Aug. 8, 1922. One of three sons of a Spanish émigré and railroad clerk, he studied biochemistry and pharmacology at the University of Córdoba.
It was in that city that he met Ernesto Guevara, an asthmatic teenager who was determined to play rugby with Mr. Granado’s team. They became close friends, sharing an intellectual curiosity, a mischievous sense of humor and a restive desire to explore their continent....
Mr. Granado, who settled in Cuba in 1961, died of natural causes, according to Cuban state television. His ashes were to be scattered in Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela, a state newscast said.
Mr. Granado was born in the Argentine town of Hernando on Aug. 8, 1922. One of three sons of a Spanish émigré and railroad clerk, he studied biochemistry and pharmacology at the University of Córdoba.
It was in that city that he met Ernesto Guevara, an asthmatic teenager who was determined to play rugby with Mr. Granado’s team. They became close friends, sharing an intellectual curiosity, a mischievous sense of humor and a restive desire to explore their continent....
2011-03-07 22:16
SOURCE: AP(3-7-11)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charles Jarrott, the veteran British film and television director best known for the acclaimed costume dramas “Anne of the Thousand Days” and “Mary, Queen of Scots,” died here on Friday. He was 83.
His death was announced by a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community where he had been living. He had been suffering from prostate cancer.
Born in London in 1927, Mr. Jarrott served in the Royal Navy during World War II and was an actor before he began directing for television in 1954.
He won a Golden Globe for “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969), his first theatrical feature, which starred Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn. Two years later he returned with the similarly themed “Mary, Queen of Scots,” with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role and Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I....
His death was announced by a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement community where he had been living. He had been suffering from prostate cancer.
Born in London in 1927, Mr. Jarrott served in the Royal Navy during World War II and was an actor before he began directing for television in 1954.
He won a Golden Globe for “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969), his first theatrical feature, which starred Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn. Two years later he returned with the similarly themed “Mary, Queen of Scots,” with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role and Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I....
2011-03-07 22:15
SOURCE: NYT(3-4-11)
Carl B. Hess, the founding chairman and longtime leader of AEA Investors, a pioneer private equity company and a precursor to the leveraged-buyout giants of the 1980s, died on Feb. 15 at his home in Manhattan. He was 98.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Ludmila Schwarzenberg Hess.
AEA was founded in 1968 as American European Associates with $15.4 million in start-up capital from the Rockefellers, Mellons and Harrimans and S. G. Warburg & Company, Siegmund Warburg’s London-based investment bank. Its goal was to acquire struggling companies whose fortunes could be reversed with an infusion of capital and stronger management.
Under Mr. Hess it evolved into “a billion-dollar club for retired Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s,” as Ron Chernow put it in “The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family” (1993)....
His death was confirmed by his wife, Ludmila Schwarzenberg Hess.
AEA was founded in 1968 as American European Associates with $15.4 million in start-up capital from the Rockefellers, Mellons and Harrimans and S. G. Warburg & Company, Siegmund Warburg’s London-based investment bank. Its goal was to acquire struggling companies whose fortunes could be reversed with an infusion of capital and stronger management.
Under Mr. Hess it evolved into “a billion-dollar club for retired Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s,” as Ron Chernow put it in “The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family” (1993)....
2011-03-04 11:19
SOURCE: NYT(3-1-11)
Necmettin Erbakan, the first Islamist prime minister of Turkey, whose attempt to turn his country away from the West led the military to depose him in 1997, died on Sunday in Ankara. He was 84.
The cause was heart failure, said Dr. Tevfik Ali Kucukbas of Guven Hospital, where Mr. Erbakan had been in intensive care since mid-January.
During his turbulent year as prime minister, Mr. Erbakan boldly challenged Turkey’s secular dogma, vowing to create a pan-Islamic currency and rescue Turkey from “the unbelievers of Europe.” He embraced the religious government in Iran, allowed female civil servants to wear head scarves to work, and held Islamic feasts in the prime minister’s residence.
Yet Mr. Erbakan was also a consummate insider, always dapper in trademark Versace ties. He was among the last survivors of the political generation that ruled Turkey as it struggled toward democracy during the second half of the 20th century, a period punctuated by three military coups. He was often called Hodja, a term of affection accorded to religious teachers or wise men....
The cause was heart failure, said Dr. Tevfik Ali Kucukbas of Guven Hospital, where Mr. Erbakan had been in intensive care since mid-January.
During his turbulent year as prime minister, Mr. Erbakan boldly challenged Turkey’s secular dogma, vowing to create a pan-Islamic currency and rescue Turkey from “the unbelievers of Europe.” He embraced the religious government in Iran, allowed female civil servants to wear head scarves to work, and held Islamic feasts in the prime minister’s residence.
Yet Mr. Erbakan was also a consummate insider, always dapper in trademark Versace ties. He was among the last survivors of the political generation that ruled Turkey as it struggled toward democracy during the second half of the 20th century, a period punctuated by three military coups. He was often called Hodja, a term of affection accorded to religious teachers or wise men....
2011-03-04 11:19
SOURCE: NYT(2-28-11)
Frank Buckles, who drove an Army ambulance in France in 1918 and came to symbolize a generation of embattled young Americans as the last of the World War I doughboys, died on Sunday at his home in Charles Town, W.Va. He was 110.
His death was announced on his Web site.
He was only a corporal and he never got closer than 30 or so miles to the Western Front trenches, but Mr. Buckles became something of a national treasure as the last living link to the two million men who served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France in “the war to end all wars.”
President Obama said in a statement that Mr. Buckles lived “a remarkable life that reminds us of the true meaning of patriotism and our obligations to each other as Americans.”
Frail, stooped and hard of hearing but sharp of mind, Mr. Buckles was named grand marshal of the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington in 2007. He was a guest at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day 2007 for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He was honored by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the Pentagon and met with President George W. Bush at the White House in March 2008....
His death was announced on his Web site.
He was only a corporal and he never got closer than 30 or so miles to the Western Front trenches, but Mr. Buckles became something of a national treasure as the last living link to the two million men who served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France in “the war to end all wars.”
President Obama said in a statement that Mr. Buckles lived “a remarkable life that reminds us of the true meaning of patriotism and our obligations to each other as Americans.”
Frail, stooped and hard of hearing but sharp of mind, Mr. Buckles was named grand marshal of the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington in 2007. He was a guest at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day 2007 for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He was honored by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the Pentagon and met with President George W. Bush at the White House in March 2008....
2011-03-01 10:21
SOURCE: NYT(2-28-11)
Jane Russell, the voluptuous actress at the center of one of the most highly publicized censorship episodes in movie history, the long-delayed release of the 1940s western “The Outlaw,” died on Monday at her home in Santa Maria, Calif. She was 89.
The cause was a respiratory-related illness, her daughter-in-law, Etta Waterfield, said.
Ms. Russell was 19 and working in a doctor’s office when Howard Hughes, returning to movie production after his aviation successes, cast her as the tempestuous Rio McDonald, Sheriff Pat Garrett’s girlfriend, in “The Outlaw,” which he directed.
A movie poster — which showed a sultry Ms. Russell in a cleavage-revealing blouse falling off one shoulder as she reclined in a haystack and held a gun — quickly became notorious and seemed to fuel movie censors’ determination to prevent the film’s release because of scenes that, by 1940s standards, revealed too much of the star’s breasts. The Roman Catholic Church was one of the movie’s vocal opponents....
The cause was a respiratory-related illness, her daughter-in-law, Etta Waterfield, said.
Ms. Russell was 19 and working in a doctor’s office when Howard Hughes, returning to movie production after his aviation successes, cast her as the tempestuous Rio McDonald, Sheriff Pat Garrett’s girlfriend, in “The Outlaw,” which he directed.
A movie poster — which showed a sultry Ms. Russell in a cleavage-revealing blouse falling off one shoulder as she reclined in a haystack and held a gun — quickly became notorious and seemed to fuel movie censors’ determination to prevent the film’s release because of scenes that, by 1940s standards, revealed too much of the star’s breasts. The Roman Catholic Church was one of the movie’s vocal opponents....
2011-03-01 10:20
SOURCE: NYT(3-1-11)
Suze Rotolo, who became widely known for her romance with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, strongly influenced his early songwriting and, in one of the decade’s signature images, walked with him arm-in-arm for the cover photo of his breakthrough album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 67.
The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Enzo Bartoccioli, said.
Ms. Rotolo (she pronounced her name SU-zee ROTE-olo) met Mr. Dylan in Manhattan in July 1961 at a Riverside Church folk concert, where he was a performer. She was 17; he was 20.
“Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Mr. Dylan wrote in his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume 1,” published in 2004. “She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.”...
The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Enzo Bartoccioli, said.
Ms. Rotolo (she pronounced her name SU-zee ROTE-olo) met Mr. Dylan in Manhattan in July 1961 at a Riverside Church folk concert, where he was a performer. She was 17; he was 20.
“Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Mr. Dylan wrote in his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume 1,” published in 2004. “She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.”...
2011-03-01 10:20
