obituary

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60 Minutes Creator Don Hewitt, 86, Dies
 60 Minutes Creator 
 Don Hewitt, 86, Dies 
Obituary
Aug 19, 2009 11:48 AM CDT

60 Minutes Creator Don Hewitt, 86, Dies

TV legend directed Cronkite, Murrow in nearly 60 years at CBS

(Newser) - Don Hewitt, one of the pioneers of TV news, died today at 86 of pancreatic cancer, CBS reports. Hewitt all but invented television news over the course of his more than 60-year career, directing legends Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He was behind the 1968 launch of 60 Minutes,...

Novak: Last of the Shoe-Leather Columnists
 Novak: Last of the
 Shoe-Leather 
 Columnists 
APPRECIATION
Aug 19, 2009 5:29 AM CDT

Novak: Last of the Shoe-Leather Columnists

(Newser) - Most Americans will remember Robert Novak as the acerbic right-winger on CNN, but he saw himself first and foremost as "a shoe-leather reporter," writes Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. Novak prided himself on getting scoops and uncovering secrets via a wide network of Republican officials. But that...

Robert Novak Dead at 78


 Robert Novak 
 Dead at 78 
Obituary
Aug 18, 2009 11:39 AM CDT

Robert Novak Dead at 78

Columnist, known as 'Prince of Darkness,' was 78

(Newser) - Conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak died this morning at 78, after a year-long battle with brain cancer, the Sun-Times reports. Known, to his delight, as the “Prince of Darkness,” Novak’s “Inside Report” column has been syndicated since 1963. He was at the center of the...

Nobelist Peacemaker Kim Dae-Jung Dies at 85

(Newser) - Kim Dae-jung, the former South Korean president who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation efforts with the North, died today at age 85. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia since last month. As a pro-democracy opposition lawmaker, Kim built a reputation as a passionate champion of human rights...

'Trailblazer' Shriver Laid to Rest

Special Olympian: she was 'Queen of humanity'

(Newser) - At today's funeral Mass for Eunice Kennedy Shriver, daughter Maria called her a “trailblazer” who “was scary smart and not afraid to show it,” the Cape Cod Times reports. Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder, Joe Biden, and Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the private service for the Special Olympics founder...

Les Paul's Genius Will Be Missed
 Les Paul's 
 Genius 
 Will Be 
 Missed
appreciation
Aug 13, 2009 3:57 PM CDT

Les Paul's Genius Will Be Missed

(Newser) - Les Paul's death today at age 94 has the accolades pouring in:
  • Lou Carlozo, True/Slant: "The solid-body Les Paul guitar that Lester developed with Gibson in the early 1950s is rock and roll. Like the Fender Stratocaster, its shape is so synonymous with the genre that any musician can
...

Music Legend Les Paul Dead at 94
 Music Legend  
 Les Paul Dead at 94 
obituary
Aug 13, 2009 1:05 PM CDT

Music Legend Les Paul Dead at 94

Inventor, guitarist 'changed the course of 20th-century popular music'

(Newser) - Musical innovator and guitar legend Les Paul died today in White Plains, NY. He was 94. A “virtuoso guitarist” himself, in the early 1940s Paul pioneered the “log” guitar, “probably the first solid-body electric guitar," writes Jon Pareles of the New York Times. His popular Gibson...

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Unsung 'Civil Rights Hero'

(Newser) - Not too long ago the mentally disabled—or "retarded" people, as we called them then—were often hidden away in medical institutions, neglected by their families, and subjected to horrific policies such as forced sterilization. Eunice Kennedy Shriver changed all that with the Special Olympics, which started in her...

Modernist Architect Gwathmey Dies at 71
 Modernist Architect 
 Gwathmey Dies at 71 
APPRECIATION
Aug 5, 2009 7:32 AM CDT

Modernist Architect Gwathmey Dies at 71

(Newser) - Charles Gwathmey, who died of esophageal cancer at 71 this week, began his architectural career as a steely, pared-down Modernist and never wavered from his style over decades of work, writes the New York Times. His larger buildings, such as an extension to Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark Guggenheim Museum, were...

Breakthrough Black Model Naomi Sims Dead at 61
Breakthrough Black Model Naomi Sims Dead at 61
OBITUARY
Aug 3, 2009 4:10 PM CDT

Breakthrough Black Model Naomi Sims Dead at 61

(Newser) - Naomi Sims, the first black model to grace the cover of Ladies Home Journal—and arguably the first black supermodel—has died at 61, the New York Times reports. Her family says the cause was cancer. Sims burst onto the scene in the late 1960s, but chose in the ‘...

Corazon Aquino Dead at 76
 Corazon Aquino Dead at 76 
OBITUARY
Jul 31, 2009 4:28 PM CDT

Corazon Aquino Dead at 76

Former president restored democracy in the Philippines

(Newser) - Corazon Aquino, former president of the Philippines, has died at 76, the Los Angeles Times reports. Aquino became Asia’s first female president, leading a “people power” movement that eventually toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986—and arguably set off a wave of democratic revolutions that ended with the...

NY Times Video Obits Give the Departed 'The Last Word'

Non-Bush ex-president has already made one

(Newser) - Obituaries are a newspaper standby, but the New York Times has removed the journalistic middleman with its series of video obits, Editor & Publisher reports. After starting 2 years ago with humorist Art Buchwald’s greeting of “Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died,” the Times...

Jazz Pioneer George Russell Dead at 86

His theory influenced Miles Davis, John Coltrane

(Newser) - Jazz innovator George Russell died at 86 yesterday in Boston of Alzheimer’s complications, the Globe reports. Russell developed a jazz theory that played a key role on landmark records like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Russell’s theory “gives you a...

Dance Legend Cunningham Dead at 90
 Dance Legend Cunningham 
 Dead at 90 
Obituary
Jul 27, 2009 10:49 AM CDT

Dance Legend Cunningham Dead at 90

(Newser) - Merce Cunningham, one of the most influential dancers and choreographers of the 20th century, died last night at age 90, the New York Times reports. Hailed as the creator of new classicism, he remained productive to the end; this year saw the premiere of his final work, “Nearly Ninety,...

One of the Last WWI Vets Dies at 111

(Newser) - Harry Patch, the last British man to survive World War I’s trenches, has died at age 111, the BBC reports. He was the oldest man in Europe, and the third oldest in the world. “I had the honor of meeting Harry, and I share his family's grief at...

Black, Gay Lit Trailblazer E. Lynn Harris Dead at 54

(Newser) - Author E. Lynn Harris, who offered a glimpse into the secret lives of closeted gay black men, died last night at 54, the AP reports. His publicist says the cause is unknown, and that Harris suddenly took ill just days ago. An autopsy will be performed next week. Harris was...

Mount Washington Mascot Dies
 Mount Washington Mascot Dies 
obituary
Jul 24, 2009 2:10 PM CDT

Mount Washington Mascot Dies

Nin charmed visitors, staff for 12 years

(Newser) - Mount Washington’s mascot of 12 years died last week at 19 or possibly 20, the Boston Globe reports. Nin the cat “brought a little piece of home” to the New Hampshire mountain’s observatory, says its executive director. He wasn’t much bothered by the site’s vicious...

Taco Bell Chihuahua Dies at 15
 Taco Bell 
 Chihuahua 
 Dies at 15 
obituary
Jul 22, 2009 12:24 PM CDT

Taco Bell Chihuahua Dies at 15

Gidget charmed viewers in ads for chain

(Newser) - Gidget, the iconic chihuahua of Taco Bell ads, died of a stroke last night at 15, her trainer tells People. “She made so many people happy,” Sue Chipperton says. Largely retired, the canine spent most of her time basking in the sun and appearing in photo shoots, where...

Angela's Ashes Author McCourt Dead at 78

(Newser) - Frank McCourt, the former schoolteacher who gained literary stardom by recounting his unhappy childhood in Angela's Ashes, died today in New York of skin cancer, the New York Times reports. He was 78. The Brooklyn-born author grew up in Limerick and taught in New York public schools for 30 years...

Cronkite: A Cool Drummer, Too

(Newser) - Yeah, he was the most trusted man in America and all that, but Boing Boing points out a different reason we're going to miss Walter Cronkite: The man had rhythm. "True fact, Walter Cronkite was a hot drummer," the site quotes John Perry Barlow, the Grateful Dead lyricist,...

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