The famous and near-famous who passed away in 2015
Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who fascinated readers with case histories that illustrated the brain’s mysteries, announced his own impending death of melanoma in a column in the New York Times.
The author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat said that as death neared he saw his life “as from a great altitude’’ with a “clear focus and perspective.’’ He also saw this: “My generation is on the way out.’’
“There will be no one like us when we are gone,’’ Sacks, 83, wrote in February. “But then there is no one like anyone else ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced.’’
That conviction informs and inspires Passages, Paste BN’s annual appreciation of celebrated Americans who died over the past year.
In retrospect, we can see their lives in clearer focus and perspective. And, as Sacks observed, they cannot be replaced.
Not Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed one of the most memorable characters in the annals of science fiction, Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.
Not Yogi Berra, a famous baseball player who became an even more famous American character.
Not B.B. King, the King of the Blues, who took his music from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the Royal Albert Hall, the Vatican and beyond. “People all over the world have problems,’’ he said. “And as long as people have problems, the blues will never die.’’
Not Mario Cuomo, the New York governor whose defense of liberalism in the age of Ronald Reagan reached its zenith in his fiery speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Reagan, echoing Puritan father John Winthrop, had called contemporary America “a shining city on a hill.’’
“A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House,’’ Cuomo said. “But there’s another part to the shining city. In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can’t find it.’’
Cuomo was 82 when he died, King 89, Berra 90, Nimoy 83. All were part of Sacks’ generation “on the way out." All are irreplaceable.
Who will sound like Ronnie Gilbert, 88, whose rich contralto helped make the Weavers (a group that included Pete Seeger) the spearhead of the folk revival a half century ago?
Who will defend the honor of Atlantic City with the passion of Pinky Kravitz, 88? He went so far back he knew Nucky Johnson – the basis for the lead character on HBO’s Prohibition era series, Boardwalk Empire.
Pinky’s was the Voice of Atlantic City, spreading the gospel of boosterism for decades via his newspaper column and radio show, Pinky’s Corner. He had the misfortune to live long enough to see four of the city’s 12 casinos close over the last two years; mercifully, he did not live long enough to see more close.
Many of that generation were pioneers. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, 95, in 1966 became the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction – and the last until 1992.
Bess Myerson, 90, was the first and only Jewish Miss America (1945). Little Stu Miller, 87, was the first and only pitcher ever forced into a balk by a gust of wind in a major league All Star Game (1961).
Frank Gifford, 83, was a trailblazer of another sort. As much as any football player, he helped make his New York Giants the toast of New York, and the National Football League the new national pastime.
A running back out of Bakersfield and USC, Gifford was the NFL’s MVP in 1956 on a team that won the league championship. His easy personality and good looks made him the prototypical sports celebrity endorser, and led to a broadcast career capped by play-by-play duties alongside Howard Cosell and Don Meredith on ABC’s Monday Night Football.
Some were soiled by scandal, such as former House Speaker Jim Wright, 92, who resigned in 1989 after two years amid an ethics controversy.
Others had an unfortunate final act. Fred Thompson, 73, was a key Watergate Committee staffer in 1974, a prolific TV actor and a two-term U.S. senator from Tennessee. But he’ll also be remembered as an unsuccessful, and rather cranky, candidate for president in 2008.
Death wasn’t confined to Sacks’ generation. Many died too young. The loss of Vice President Joe Biden’s son Beau at 46 of recurrent brain cancer was like a loss in the national family.
ESPN anchor Stuart Scott’s audience was well aware of his struggle with cancer, and inspired by his determination in the face of it.
Scott received a standing ovation when he accepted the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2014 ESPY Awards. "When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer," Scott told the audience. "You beat cancer by how you live."
He died six months later, at 49.
Other successful men died young, including Dave Goldberg, 47, CEO of SurveyMonkey and husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.
One very rich man lived to be very old. Kirk Kerkorian, who made billions in Las Vegas and Hollywood deals, was 98.
We lost some great nicknames in 2015. Rodney “Hot Rod” Hundley, 80, was a shameless show boater on the basketball court at West Virginia University and at the microphone as an NBA broadcaster.
Kenneth “Snake’’ Stabler, 69, starred at quarterback for Alabama before moving to the NFL’s Oakland Raiders. Johnny “Yard Dog’’ Jones, 74, was a Chicago bluesman as persistent as his nickname suggested. After years on the small club circuit, he recorded his first album at 55.
If you believe in that sort of thing, you hope that Jayne Meadows, 95, was reunited with her husband Steve Allen, who died in 2000, and that Sarah Brady, 73, joined her husband Jim, the Reagan press secretary turned gun control advocate who predeceased her by one year.
Some passages took us back: Lesley Gore, 68, wailing “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’’ in the pre-Beatles year of 1963. Or Billy Joe Royal, 73, singing Down in the Boondocks two years later.
Some of those who passed on left behind famous words:
“Sock it to me!’’ — Comedian Judy Carne, 76, who starred on the ‘60s comedy hit show, Laugh-In.
“Fo, fo, fo.” — Relentless rebounder Moses Malone, 60, who predicted his Philadelphia 76ers would win the 1984 NBA playoffs by sweeping three straight best-of-seven series. He was off by one game.
“Let’s play two!’’ — Chicago Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks, who so loved baseball that he wished every day was a doubleheader.
"It’ ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” — Guess who?
Some who passed on were contrasts, such as college basketball coaches Dean Smith and Jerry Tarkanian, who died four days apart in February. Smith was 83, Tarkanian 84.
Smith, at North Carolina for 36 years, was known for winning two NCAA championships; running a clean program with high graduation rates; and playing at Kansas under Phog Allen, who himself had played there for James Naismith, who invented the sport.
Tark worked the other side of the street. The three schools he coached — Long Beach State, UNLV and Fresno State — ended up facing NCAA sanctions for rules violations. But like Smith, he won both an NCAA crown and the respect of those who played for him.
Some lives ended suddenly and tragically.
John Nash, 86, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician whose struggle with schizophrenia was chronicled in the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind, died in a car crash along with his wife Alicia in New Jersey. CBS TV newsman Bob Simon, 73, was killed a crash in New York City.
Walter Scheib, White House chef for 11 years under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, refocused the menu on American cuisine with seasonal ingredients. He was found dead after vanishing on a solo hike in New Mexico. He was 61.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 22, the troubled daughter of troubled singer Whitney Houston, died in a hospice, nearly six months after she was found face down and unconscious in her bathtub.
Sawyer Sweeten, 19, who played one of Ray Romano’s young twin sons on the TV comedy series Everybody Loves Raymond from 1996-2005, committed suicide.
Amanda Peterson, a 43-year-old actress best known for her role in the 1987 romantic comedy Can't Buy Me Love, was found dead in her Colorado home of an accidental morphine overdose. She’d suffered from heart and lung disease, and from pain following a hysterectomy.
Some great creators went to meet their own maker. Wes Craven, 76, imagined the bloodthirsty horror flick villain Freddie Krueger, and custom cars designer George Barris, 89, was subject of the title story in Tom Wolfe’s The Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Melissa Mathison, 65, wrote the film with one of the most famous lines in cinema: “E.T. phone home.’’
The civil rights movement lost many veterans, including Julian Bond, 75; Grace Lee Boggs, 100; and Rev. Willie T. Barrow, 90, "The Little Warrior," who marched at Selma and helped found what became the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
Hard to believe that those passing on included Donna Douglas, 82, who played the gorgeous, guileless Elly Mae Clampet on The Beverly Hillbillies, and Pat Woodell, 71, one of three teenage sisters on Petticoat Junction. They live on in syndication, as does Al Molinaro, 96, the diner owner on Happy Days.
Martin Milner, 83, proved that a good TV actor usually has two successful series in him. His were Adam-12, an L.A. police procedural, and the seminal buddy-road trip drama Route 66.
Passing on in 2015 were the Marlboro Man (Darrell Winfield, 85); the driver of the VW in Disney’s The Love Bug (Dean Jones, 84); and bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazard (James Best, 88).
Jean Darling, 93, who once played the adorable blond girl on The Little Rascals was among the last living actors to have worked in silent film.
Musical genius took its leave.
- Allen Toussaint, 77, was a songwriter, producer, performer and living symbol of New Orleans music. He died with his boots on — touring in Europe.
- Ben E. King, 76, recorded bluesy pop classics such as Stand By Me and There Goes My Baby.
- Percy Sledge, 74, breathed such emotion into the blues ballad, When a Man Loves a Woman, that it became a staple at weddings of all colors and classes. He sang it himself at the wedding of Bruce Springsteen collaborator Steve Van Zandt.
- Lynn Anderson, 67, recorded the 1970 crossover country hit, (I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden.
- Ornette Coleman, 85, was a jazz virtuoso on alto sax.
We lost innovators and inventors, including Samuel Glazer, 89, who introduced the Mr. Coffee drip coffeemaker in 1972 with the help of a special pitchman. So successful was the campaign, Glazer once said, that "millions of kids grew up thinking Joe DiMaggio was a famous appliance salesman."
Horst Brandstaetter, 81, launched the Playmobil line of plastic toys in the 1970s. Jean Nidetch, 91, tackled her obesity problem and shared her lessons with others in meetings that became the foundation for Weight Watchers. Gary Ross Dahl, 78, created the big ‘70s fad, the Pet Rock.
Writers along the literary waterfront died. E.L. Doctorow, 84, was author of critically acclaimed novels such as The March and Billy Bathgate. Jackie Collins, 77, published 32 romance novels, all best-sellers. Colleen McCullough, 77, wrote The Thorn Birds (1977), which sold millions of copies and was made into a popular miniseries.
Oliver Sacks’ last column for the Times focused on the Sabbath, in scripture the last day of the week and the one of rest. His saw a connection to the end of life, “when one can feel that one’s work is done and one may, in good conscience, rest.’’
Two weeks later, he went to his.
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