Tag Archives: obituary

Reuters reports: British-Irish actor Michael Gambon, best known to global audiences for playing the wise professor Albus Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” movie franchise and whose career was launched by his mentor Laurence Olivier, died aged 82 on Thursday. He died peacefully in hospital, PA Media reported citing a family statement. Gambon began his acting on the stage in the …

Rolling Stone reports: Steve Harwell, who cofounded the band Smash Mouth in 1994, has died at the age of 56, band manager Robert Hayes confirmed. The musician, best known for hits like “All Star” and “I’m a Believer,” died at his home in Boise, ID “surrounded by family and friends.” Harwell had been in hospice care following medical complications. The …

NBC News reports: Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of Energy under President Bill Clinton, died Saturday, according to the Richardson Center for Global Engagement. Richardson was 75. Mickey Bergman, Vice President of the Richardson Center, commented in a statement, “Governor Richardson passed away peacefully in his sleep last night. He …

Breitbart reports: Joe Wurzelbacher, whom Americans would remember as “Joe the Plumber” from the 2008 presidential election, died on Sunday at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer. Wurzelbacher became a household name during the 2008 presidential election when the media dubbed him “Joe the Plumber” after he questioned then-presidential candidate Barack Obama about his tax policy. The John McCain …

Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate reports: Bob Barker, the former longtime host of the popular TV game show “The Price Is Right” and an animal-rights activist, died Saturday morning. He was 99. Details of his passing and the cause of death were not immediately available. Barker was a winner of 19 Daytime Emmy Awards. Also received an Emmy Award for Lifetime …

CBS News reports: New Jersey’s Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Oliver, died at age 71, her family and Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday. Oliver had been filling in as acting governor while Murphy was out of the state on a family vacation in Italy. Then on Monday, she was taken to a hospital for an undisclosed medical issue. Oliver made history in …

Variety reports: Paul Reubens, the actor best known for portraying Pee-wee Herman, died Sunday night after a private bout of cancer. He was 70. “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” wrote Reubens in a statement posted to Instagram after his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of …

The Daily Mail reports: Sinead O’Connor has died at the age of 56, it was reported last night. The Irish singer shot to stardom across the world in 1990 by her heartrending cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U.  It comes a year after the mother-of-four’s son Shane, 17, took his own life in January 2022 after escaping hospital while …

The New York Times reports: Tony Bennett, a singer whose melodic clarity, jazz-influenced phrasing, audience-embracing persona and warm, deceptively simple interpretations of musical standards helped spread the American songbook around the world and won him generations of fans, died on Friday in New York City. He was 96. In February 2021, his wife, Susan Bennett, told AARP Magazine that Mr. …

The New York Times reports: Glenda Jackson, the two-time Oscar winner who renounced a successful film and stage career in her 50s to become a member of the British Parliament, then returned to the stage at 80 as the title character in “King Lear,” died on Thursday at her home in Blackheath, London. She was 87. She won her first …

People Magazine reports: Treat Williams, the star of Everwood and Hair, has died after being involved in a motorcycle accident. He was 71. The actor’s death was confirmed to PEOPLE on Monday evening by his agent of 15 years, Barry McPherson. “He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a right [and] a car cut him off,” …

Reuters reports: Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a billionaire businessman who created Italy’s largest media company before transforming the political landscape, died on Monday aged 86. Berlusconi, who was prime minister during 1994-5, 2001-6 and 2008-11, had been suffering from leukemia and had recently developed a lung infection. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing …

The Guardian reports: Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged age of 83 after a long illness, her publicist has told the PA news agency. Turner affirmed and amplified Black women’s formative stake in rock’n’roll, defining that era of music to the extent that Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration …

The Guardian reports: Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a …

Billboard Magazine reports: Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian singer/songwriter behind the folk hits “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “Sundown” and “If You Could Read My Mind,” died at age 84 on Monday (May 1), his family has announced. Lightfoot’s six-decade career began in the early 1960s on the Toronto folk circuit and went worldwide in the 1970s thanks to a …

Cincinnati’s CBS affiliate reports: Jerry Springer, the onetime mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show featured a three-ring circus of dysfunctional families willing to bare all on weekday afternoons including brawls, obscenities and blurred images of nudity, died Thursday at 79. At its peak, “The Jerry Springer Show” was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with …

The New York Times reports: Harry Belafonte, who stormed the pop charts and smashed racial barriers in the 1950s with his highly personal brand of folk music, and who went on to become a major force in the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 96. The cause was …

The BBC reports: Australian entertainer Barry Humphries, best known for his comic character Dame Edna Everage, has died aged 89. The star had been in hospital in Sydney after suffering complications following hip surgery in March. He had a fall in February. Humphries’ most famous creation became a hit in the UK in the 1970s and landed her own TV …

San Francisco’s NBC affiliate reports: Longtime San Francisco drag performer Heklina has reportedly died in London, according to a social media post from fellow SF drag mainstay, Peaches Christ (aka Joshua Grannell). Heklina and Grannell were apparently in London together starring in “Mommie Queerest,” which is a described as a “Wild drag parody” of the 1981 film, “Mommie Dearest.” “This …

NPR reports: Ryuichi Sakamoto, a trailblazing composer and producer who was one of the first musicians to incorporate electronic production into popular songcraft, has died at the age of 71. Sakamoto died on March 28 after a multi-year battle with cancer, according to a statement published on his website Sunday. “We would like to share one of Sakamoto’s favorite quotes,” …