Arts & Letters –– Business –– Miscellaneous
Movies, Stage, & Television –– Politics & Government –– Music –– Sports
A. E. Hotchner (age 102) - Hotchner was a novelist, biographer, and playwright; best known for biographies of Doris Day and Ernest Hemingway. He wrote the screenplay for
King of the Hill and television treatments of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Fifth Column." In 1982, Hotchner and his friend and neighbor, Paul Newman, founded the food company Newman's Own. All profits from the company's sales go to charity. Hotchner died
February 15, 2020.
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Roger Kahn (age 92) - Kahn was a newspaper reporter in New York, covering the Brookly Dodgers. He rose through journalistic ranks to become sports editor at Newsweek and an editor at large for the Saturday Evening Post. In 1972 he published his biggest hit, the baseball-slash-male bonding book The Boys of Summer, named by Sports Illustrated as one of the best sports books of all time. Kahn passed away February 6, 2020. |
| Ron McLarty (age 72) - McLarty may be familiar to fans of the '70s tlevision show "Spenser for Hire," where he played a Boston homicide cop. His voice, however, is more familiar to many fans of audiobooks for his narration of novels by such writers as David Baldacci and Danielle Steele. He even wrote (an narrated) his own novels, beginning with 2004's The Memory of Running. McLarty succumbed to dementia on February 8, 2020. |
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 | Charles Portis (age 86) - Portis is probably best known as the author of True Grit, the western novel made into a motion picture - twice - as well as a sequel and a made-for-TV sequel. He also wrote Norwood, which was likewise made into a movie, albeit. more modern. He was renowned as a chronicler of the American west and south and for his at times deadpan humor. Portis expired February 17, 2020. |
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Joe Coulombe (age 89) - The California native began a retail career with the Rexall drug chain in 1958. The company put him in charge of their fledgling convenience store chain, Pronto Markets, which Coulombe bought in 1967, changing the name to Trader Joe's. He sold the chain, which now has more than 470 stores nationwide, to the founder of Aldi in 1979. Coulombe, who continued to act as CEO until 1988, passed away on
February 28, 2020.
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Bernard Ebbers (age 78) - Ebbers, a Canadian by birth, was co-founder and CEO of the infamous WorldCom. He began his telecom career as an investor in LDDS in 1983, after which the company changed its name to WorldCom. The company cut a wide swathe through the industry, gobbling up MCI and making a run at Sprint. In 2002, the company collapsed under a wave of investigations for accounting irregularities; eclipsed only by the Madoff debacle in its size. Ebbers died February 2, 2020. |
Frederick R. Koch (age 86) - The eldest son of Fred C. Koch, Koch was one of four bothers who inherited Koch Industries from their father. Fred and brother Bill divorced themselves from their political activist brothers Charles and David, and Fred became a well-known philanthropist and art collector instead of Libertarian gadfly. Frederick Koch died
February 12, 2020.
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B. Smith (age 70) - In her modeling days, Barbara "B." Smith was the African-American woman to make the cover of Mademoiselle, and was famous as a model and occasional television guest. She was more recently known for her eponymous east-coast chain of restaurants and cookbooks based on their recipes. Smith succumbed to early-onset Alzheimer's disease on February 22, 2020. |
Sy Sperling (age 78) - "I'm not only the Hair Club president, but I'm also a client!" was Sy Sperling's pitch for the company he founded, Hair Club for Men. Sperling founded his company based on a hair weaving technique in the 1960s, and went nationwide with his signature television commercials in 1982. Sperling sold the franchised business in 2000. No word on whether he used some of the $45 million to pay his hair club dues. He died
February 19, 2020.
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Owen Bieber (age 90) - Bieber began working in the auto industry straight out of his Grand Rapids, Mich., high school. Within a few years, he became a shop steward and president of the UAW local, a position he held for several years. He began organizing for the union in the 1960s, and moved to the national organization. He rose through the UAW ranks, eventually becoming the president of the national UAW. He held the presidency from 1983 to 1995, a period during which unions in general lost membership and political power. Bieber died
February 17, 2020.
Jaime Carbonell (age 69) - Born in Uruguay, Carbonell studied at MIT before receiving a PhD in computer science from Yale. He was a professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University with a specialization in machine learning and an interest in artificial intelligence. Carbonell died
February 28, 2020.
Stanley Cohen (age 97) - Cohen was a biochemist who researched cellular growth factors during tenures at Washington and Vanderbilt Universities from 1953 to 1999. He shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and a National Science Medal that same year with a colleague from Washington University. Cohen passed away
February 5, 2020.
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George Coyne (age 87) - Coyne answered two callings, first as a Jesuit priest and also as an astronomer. Using his Georgetosn PhD in astronomy, Coyne became the Vatican Astonomer at the same time he was a fellow of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. Coyne was an outspoken opponent of "intelligent design" who found no problem reconciling his scientific beliefs with his religion. He died February 11, 2020, of cancer. |
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Freeman Dyson (age 96) - DYson may well have been one of the most prolific thinkers of his generation. A physicist and mathematician, Dyson contributed heavily to the fields of quantum dynamics, solid-state physics, and nuclear physics. He was also responsible for such concepts as the Dyson sphere (astronomy/science fiction), the Dyson series (mathematics), and the Dyson tree (botany/genetic engineering). He was professor emeritus at Princeton University at the time of his death, February 28, 2020. |
Mike Hughes (age 64) - "Mad Mike" Hughes played at the edge of fame for what normal people would consider his outrageous behavior. He first became famous for jumping a stretch limo, then building his own rocket. One would assume that someone who practices rocketry would be familiar with the shape of the Earth, but Hughes was a "flat-earther." Go figure. Hughes was killed in a stunt gone wrong on
February 22, 2020.
| Katherine Johnson (age 101) - Johnson, born Creola Coleman, displayed her mathematical acuity at an early age; eventually enrolling at a high school on a West Virginia college campus at age 10 and receiving a PhD in math at age 18. In the mid-1950s, Johnson was one of a group of woman who worked as "computers" in the aviation industry, eventually working for NASA. Her career, along with that of other women in the "colored computer" pool, was chronicled in the film Hidden Figures. Johnson died February 24, 2020. |
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Ray Norris (age 72) - Ray Norris and Larry Bittaker (Died 2019) were convicted in 1981 of serial rape, kidnapping, and murder for a series of crimes the two committed in 1979. Because of their use of houshold tools to torture and kill their victims, the two were known in the press as the Tool Box Killers. Norriswas on death row in San Quentin when he died on February 24, 2020 |
Bert Sutherland (age 83) - Sutherland was one of the earliest computer scientists to help shepherd society into the "information age." Among his accomplishments are having managed three major laboratories, including Sun Microsystems and the consortium that developed ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet. At Xerox, he was in charge of the division that developed the first personal computer, the Alto. Sutherland died
February 18, 2020.
Larry Tesler (age 74) - Although his name remains unknown to the vast majority of people, Tesler's contributions to the information age are immeasurable: he's the guy who invented cut, copy, and paste for the computer interface. This breakthrough took place at Xerox, the company from which Steve Jobs copied most of "his ideas" for Apple. Tesler later worked for Apple. He passed away
February 16, 2020.
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| Orson Bean(age 91) - Bean was best known as a comedian and actor with a long career in film and televsion. He had small parts in several films plus an Oscar nomination for Subways are for Sleeping (1962), and made many television appearances as a comedic guest. He was a favorite of late-night elevision hosts, and held down a slot in long-running syndicated game shows such as "To Tell the Truth." Bean was struck by a hit-and-run driver on February 7, 2020, and killed by a second collision. |  |
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Diana Serra Cary (age 101) - Cary was the last surviving star from the silent film era, when she appeared in more than 20 films as "Baby Peggy" or "The Million-Dollar Baby." As a toddler, Cary sometimes worked fifty-hour weeks on the stage and performed her own stunts. She was the victim of a "stage father," which essentially black-listed her at the age of seven, She made few film appearances afterwards, and spent most of her ensuing career in vaudeville before leaving show business. Cary died February 24, 2020. |
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Lynn Cohen (age 86) - Cohen began her career on the stage in the 1970s, and transitioned to film and television two decades later. She made many guest appearances and had a recurring role in the televisions series and movie Sex and the City. One recurring role was that of a judge in the "Law & Order" home franchise. She also appeared in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Cohen died February 14, 2020. |
| Robert Conrad (age 84) - Conrad, a lead actor in a number of television shows, may have been best known for almost being killed during a stunt on the set of "The Wild Wild West" in 1969. IN addition to his role as Jim West, he also starred in "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Hawaiian Eye." He was also a musician, producer, and director; collecting a People's Choice Award as favorite male performer in 1977. Conrad died of heart failure on February 8, 2020. |
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| Jason Davis (age 35) - Davis was a child actor who had a small number of roles as an adult. He may be best known as the voice of the recurring character Mikey Blumberg in the animated film series Recess. Davis was the grandson of millionaire Marvin Davis, who at one time owned 20th Century Fox. He died February 16, 2020. |
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Kirk Douglas (age 103) - Ever identifiable by his cleft chin, Kirk Douglas was a Hollywood icon with a career that stretched across seven decades. Douglas earned his first of three Oscar nominations in 1950, finally picking up a lifetime award in 1996. He was a Kennedy Center honoree (1994) and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981). His son Michael followed him into the business. Douglas also published several novels and directed multiple films. He passed away February 5, 2020. |
| Ja'net DuBois (age 82?) - Born Jeannette Dubois some time between 1932 and 1945 and somewhere on the U. S. east coast, DuBois was a stage actress before being approached by Norman Lear to play the role of Mama Evans' best friend on the television show "Good Times." She had several other telvision and film roles, and played Janet Jackson's mother in a music video and Momma Bosley in Charlie's Angels:Full Throttle. She also is credited with writing and performing the theme song for "The Jeffersons." DuBois won two Emmy Awards and a TVLand Image Award. She died February 17, 2020. |
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Paula Kelly (age 76) - Kelly had a long career in both film and television, especially appearances that used her training as a dancer. She sometimes doubled as a choreographer for television specials in which she appeared. Most of her television appearances were as guest stars, but she was a regular on the first season of "Night Court" and in the soap opera "Santa Barbara." Kelly died February 9, 2020. |
| Jane Millmore (age 64) - Wyoming native Jane Millmore was an actor, producer, and writer. In addition to producing such shows as "Newhart" and "Anything but Love," Millmore published more than twenty plays with frequent partner Billy Van Zandt. She was nominated for an Emmy for a special about Lucille Ball. Millmore died of pancreatic cancer February 4, 2020. |
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Kellye Nakahara (age 73) - Nakahara's most familiar acting role was that of Nurse Kellye, for which she appeared in more than 150 episodes of "M*A*S*H." She had a few other roles in television and film, eventually retiring after an appearance in 2000 to return to art, her original field of study. She was a successful watercolorist under her married name, Kellye Wallett. Nakahara died February 16, 2020, of cancer. |
| Gene Reynolds (age 96) - Reynolds was first an actor in film and, later, on television; before turning to directing and producing in the late 1950s. His most successful efforts were the TCV series "M*A*S*H" and "Lou Grant," both considered examples of the "golden age of television." He was nominated for prime time Emmy awards more than twenty times and won six. Reynolds died of heart failure on February 3, 2020. |
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Esther Scott (age 66) - Scott was an actress and voice actress with a long list of film credits as well as some television work. She played the housekeeper, Gladys, in the one-season "Geena Davis Show," phad a recurring rols in Hart of Dixie," and voiced an Ewok in the animated "Star Wars: Ewoks." On the big screen, Scott appeared in Boyz 'n' the Hood and Transformers, among other roles. She passed away February 14, 2020. |
Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon (age 59) - Wheeler-Dixon spent more then thirty years in the film industry as a stunt double and martial-arts trainer, appearing in films including
Back to the Future and
Charlie's Angels. She trained actors for action movies, including Rene Russo for the
Lethal Weapons franchises
. Wheeler-Dixon and her husband were killed in a shootout with her ex-husband on
February 12, 2020.
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| Buddy Cage (age 73) - Cage was one of the best-known practitioners of pedal steel guitar, including long stints with Great Speckled Bird and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. He also recorded with such artists as Anne Murray, David Bromberg, and Bob Dylan. Cage died of multiple myeloma on February 5, 2020. |
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Henry Gray (age 95) - Gray, a Lousiana native, performed and recorded his blues stylings for more than seven decades. He appeared with a wide range of acts, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and the Rolling Stones. His piano style is considered the archetype of "Chicago Blues piano." Henry was inducted into teh Blues Hall of Fame in 2017. Gray continued to play his piano up until weeks before his death on February 17, 2020. |
| Lyle Mays (age 66) - Mays was a jazz pianist best known for a decades long collaboration with Pat Metheny. During Mays' tenure with the Pat Metheny Group, the ensemble collected eleven Grammy awards. Mays also worked as a sideman with artists like Joni Mitchell, Bobby McFerrin, and Earth Wind and Fire. Mays died February 10, 2020. |
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Peter Serkin (age 72) - Serkin began his career as a concert pianist at age 12; playing with the orchestras of Cleveland and Philadelphia before his twentieth birthday. Serkin was awarded a Grammy in 1966 as the most promising young classical artist and was nominated for a recording Grammy three times. After a brief hiatus from playing, Serkin re-launched his career, performing and recording well into the 2010s. Serkin died of pancreatic cancer February 1, 2020. |
| Joseph Shabalala (age 78) - Shabalala was the founder of South African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which accompanied Paul Simon on his 1986 album "Graceland." The group, largely relatives and neighbors of Shabalala from the town of Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, went on to win two Grammy awards from more than ten nominations. Shabalala died February 11, 2020, in Pretoria. |
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Daniel arap Moi (age 95) - Moi was the second president of Kenya, following Jomo Kenyatta in 1978 and serving until being forced out of office in 2002. Although relatively stable, Moi's administration, like most administrations, was marked by corruption and graft, one reason that he was banned from running again in 2002. He died in Nairobi on
February 4, 2020.
Mike Moore (age 71) - Moore was briefly the Prime Minister of New Zealand, filling in for 59 days in 1990. He retired from politics after reaching that pinnacle, after which he was the Director General of the WTO for three years and v=served as the New Zealand Ambassador to the USA from 2010 to 2015. Moore died
February 2, 2020.
Hosni Mubarak (age 91) - Mubarak assumed the presidency in Egypt following the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, holding that office continuously until he was deposed during the Arab Spring uprising in 2011. After leaving office, he was tried and sentenced to prison for the killing of protesters, a sentence that was nullified in a retrial. Mubrarak, visibly ill during his second trial, perished on
February 25, 2020.
Clayton Williams (age 90) - Williams, a Midland, Texas businessman, narrowly lost the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race to Ann Richards, thereby becoming the last Republican to lose a statewide race in the state. The oilman retired from politics after that loss, which many pundits blamed on his tone-deaf jokes and speeches. Williams died
February 14, 2020.
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| Johnny Antonelli (age 89) - (not to be confused with John Antonelli, killed in the helicopter crash that claimed the life of Kobe Bryant). Antonelli was a left-handed pitcher for the Braves and Giants during the late '40s and '50s. When signed by Boston in 1948, he received the then-highest ever signing bonus of $52,000. In his 13-year career, he pitched in more than 300 games, starting 268 and finishing with a respectable 126-110 record. He was a six-time All Star. Antonelli died February 28, 2020. |
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Pete Babando (age 94) - The Pennsylvania native played for almost 25 years, spending all or part of seven seasons in the NHL. The left-winger spent two seasons with the Bruins, part of one season with the Red Wings, and all or part of two seasons with the Blackhawks before finishing his NHL career with the Rangers. In all, he played 351 NHL games, tallying 86 goals. In the 1950 Stanley Cup finals, he scored the winning goal in the seventh game for the Red Wings. Babando died February 19, 2020. |
| Gil Coan (age 97) - Coan was a MLB player from 1946-56, spending all or part of seasons with the Senators, Orioles, White Sox, and Giants. An outfielder, Coan is best known for having played with a partially amputated thumb on his throwing hand. He shares the major league record for having hit two triples in the same inning. Coan died February 4, 2020. |
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Angel Echevarria (age 48) - Echevarria was an outfielder for the Rockies, Brewers, and Cubs from 1996 to 2002 before leaving to play in Japan. In 328 MLB games, he compiled a .280 batting average and drove in 90 runs. He died as a result of a fall on
February 7, 2020.
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Tony Fernández (age 57) Fernández, a shortstop and third baseman, spent eighteen seasons in major league baseball, seven-plus of them with the Toronto Blue Jays, for whom he played four different times. He was a five-time All-Star and a four-time Golden Glove winner, and was long considered one of the best defensive players ever at his position. Fernández passed away February 15, 2020, from kidney disease |
| Brian Glennie (age 76) - Glennie spent eleven seasons in the NHL, spending ten years as a defenseman for the Maple Leafs before finishing with the Kings. He also played on Team Canada in the 1968 olympics. Glennie was considered one of the best all-time checkers in the NHL. In 572 NHL games, he scored 114 points and amassed 614 penalty minutes. He died February 7, 2020. |
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Candace Muzny (age 43) - Muzny was a one-time NASCAR driver who competed in 2011-2012. She was found dead in her home on
February 17, 2020. The coroner ruled her death due to accidental drowning. Muzny had recently been in trouble with the law for allegedly attacking a Vietnamese manicurist for "not speaking English."
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Willie Wood (age 83) - Wood was an NFL Hall of Fame defensive back, an honor he earned during his 11 seasons with the Green Bay Packers (1960-71). He was an 8-time ProBowl selection, 5 times first-team; a five-time NFL champion and a 2-time Super Bowl champion. His 48 picks resulted in almost 700 yards and two TD returns. After retiring, he coached in the NFL, WFL, and CFL. Wood died February 3, 2020. |
Mickey Wright (age 85) - Born Mary Katherine Wright, Mickey Wright was a professional golfer and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. She joined the LPGA tour in 1955 at age 20, ultimately winning 82 championships including 13 majors. The California native was named the top women's golger of all time in a 2009 survey. She was inducgted into the PGA Hall of Fame in 2017. Wright died
February 17, 2020.
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