Departures

Edmund Abel

April 2 | 92 | Contract engineer who designed the Mr. Coffee drip brewing machine launched in 1972.

Fouad Ajami

June 22 | 68 | Middle East scholar and director of the Middle East Studies program at Johns Hopkins, the Lebanese-American of Shiite descent for 27 years wrote commentary for The Wall Street Journal, supported war in Iraq but became a critic of its Shiite-led government.

John F. Akers

Aug. 22 | 79 | Chief executive of IBM (1985-1993), a turbulent time that saw the ascendency of the personal computer and decline of IBM’s mainframe (and mainstay) computer business.

Ann Kiemel Anderson

March 1 | 68 | Best-selling author of Christian books, inspirational speaker, and frequent guest on national religious radio and TV shows. Her first, I’m Out to Change My World (1974), became a bestseller by word of mouth.

Maya Angelou

May 28 | 86 | African-American author and poet best known for her autobiographical bestseller about perseverance in hard times, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and for her poetry (she recited “On the Pulse of the Morning” at President Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration).

Lauren Bacall

Aug. 12 | 89 | Sultry-voiced actress who soared to fame in her first film, with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not in 1944. The couple married in 1945 and starred together in three more blockbusters before Bogart died in 1957. Appearing in more than 40 films, she also co-starred with the era’s biggest names (Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Gregory Peck, and others).

Howard Baker

June 26 | 88 | First Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee since Reconstruction (1967-1985, and Senate majority leader from 1981-1985), gaining prominence as ranking member of the committee overseeing the Watergate investigation and serving as White House Chief of Staff during President Ronald Reagan’s second term.

Marion Barry

Nov. 23 | 78 | Early civil rights leader in the 1960s and political activist who became the second mayor of Washington, D.C. (1979-1991), elected again as its fourth mayor (2005-2014). Controversy and corruption marked his years in office. Caught on an FBI video in 1990 smoking cocaine in a hotel room with a woman not his wife, he managed a political comeback after a six-month prison term.

Gerald “Jerry” Beavan

March 11 | 95 | One of evangelist Billy Graham’s earliest key staff members (1950-1963), best known publicly as the golden-throated news reporter on the Graham Hour of Decision weekly radio broadcast.

Polly Bergen

Sept. 20 | 84 | Versatile, persevering stage, screen, and TV actress, singer, quiz show panelist, cosmetics and jewelry merchant, she won a best-actress Emmy in 1958 for her Playhouse 90 portrayal of alcoholic torch singer Helen Morgan. She was nominated again 50 years later for her guest role on Desperate Housewives.

H. Richard Black

March 30 | 92 | Ohio commercial artist and magazine illustrator who in 1956 created Proctor & Gamble’s genie-in-a-bottle trademark and “Mr. Clean” for an upcoming P&G household cleaning product. He painted the U.S. Forest Service’s “Smokey the Bear” fire-prevention character (1956-1976).

Shirley Temple Black

Feb. 10 | 85 | Lovable singer (“On the Good Ship Lollipop”) and tap dancer, she was America’s most popular child movie star—in 40 films before she turned 12 (including her first big hit at age 7 in Little Miss Marker). She lifted the spirits of millions during the Great Depression and as an adult was active in TV, charity, and politics, serving in ambassadorships under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and George H.W. Bush.

Bob Bowman

March 12 | 98 | Missionary broadcasting pioneer who started out in 1934 in the Haven of Rest broadcast ministry’s male quartet and later co-founded the Far East Broadcast Company. By the time he retired as president in 1992, FEBC had targeted 26 countries with programs in nearly 150 languages.

Ben Bradlee

Oct. 10 | 93 | Journalist and long-time top editor of The Washington Post known for overseeing the newspaper’s investigation into the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

James Brady

Aug. 8 | 73 | Former White House press secretary shot and permanently disabled during an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981. He later lent use of his name to a national gun-control lobby.

David Brenner

March 15 | 78 | Comedian and frequent guest host on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and a regular on other TV talk and game shows.

Richard Bull

Feb. 3 | 89 | Character actor known by millions as the calm and sensible shopkeeper Nels Oleson on TV’s Little House on the Prairie.

Sid Caesar

Feb. 12 | 91 | Early television’s biggest star (and two-time Emmy Award winner) in live sketch comedy in the 1950s on the series Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour.

R. Judson Carlberg

Nov. 20 | 74 | President of Gordon College (1992-2011) and long an influential leader in Christian higher-education circles.

John Mack Carter

Sept. 26 | 86 | Male journalist who served successively as editor of the Big Three women’s magazines: McCall’s (1961-1965), Ladies Home Journal (1965-1974), and Good Housekeeping (1975-1994).

S. Truett Cathy

Sept. 8 | 93 | Raised in poverty in Georgia, the Southern Baptist became part-owner of a diner near Atlanta, created a chicken sandwich in 1961 that he christened “Chick-fil-A,” and in 1967 used the namesake to launch a family-owned, closed-on-Sundays, fast-food chain. Its 1,800 U.S. outlets topped $5 billion in sales in 2013.

Dorothy “Dodo” Cheney

Nov. 23 | 98 | Hall of Fame tennis great, a woman who in 1938 was the first American to win what is now the Australian Open. She went on to win 391 U.S. championships, most of them after she turned 55, competing into her 80s.

Jerry Coleman

Jan. 5 | 89 | Former Marine Corps wartime pilot and smooth-fielding second baseman for the New York Yankees in the 1940s and ’50s, and the 1949 American League Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the 1950 World Series. He moved to the Yankees’ broadcasting booth 1963-1969, and spent 42 years as the beloved radio voice of the San Diego Padres.

Philip M. Crane

Nov. 11 | 84 | Former history professor, author, and Goldwater-brand Republican congressman from Illinois (1969-2004) who helped to forge and focus the modern conservative political movement. He co-founded the Republican Study Committee in the early 1970s and chaired the American Conservative Union (1977-1979).

Alvin Dark

Nov. 13 | 92 | Rookie of the Year shortstop for the 1948 Boston Braves and three-time All Star for the New York Giants in the 1950s who played on three World Series teams in 14 seasons, managed the San Francisco Giants in the 1960s, and went on to manage the Oakland A’s to the World Series championship in 1974.

Alice Coachman Davis

July 14 | c. 90 | Track-and-field star in the segregated South, winner of national U.S. track championships, and the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal—at the 1948 London Games.

Ann B. Davis

June 1 | 88 | Emmy-winning actress most famously remembered as housekeeper Alice Nelson on TV’s The Brady Bunch (1969-1974). In real life, she became an avid evangelical Episcopalian in the early 1970s and was active in ministries to the homeless and hungry.

Dayuma

March 1 | c. 80 | First known Christian convert from the primitive, often-violent Auca tribal people in the jungles of eastern Ecuador. She had fled as a child to seek refuge among the nearby Quechua people, where Wycliffe missionary Rachel Saint befriended and nurtured her, learning her unwritten language. Dayuma’s story, along with those of the missionaries involved, was told in widowed missionary Elisabeth Elliot’s 1957 bestseller, Through Gates of Splendor.

Ruby Dee

June 11 | 91 | Harlem-born actress who rose above segregation-era stereotypes and won acclaim for important roles in movies, television, and on stage. She also was a respected civil rights figure who, with her husband of 56 years, fellow actor Ossie Davis, stood next to Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington and emceed the program.

Jeremiah Denton

March 3 | 89 | Vietnam war hero and conservative U.S. Republican senator from Alabama (the first since Reconstruction). As a Navy pilot shot down in 1965, he survived nearly eight years of captivity in North Vietnam, and in front of a news camera blinked the most famous Morse Code message in history: “T-O-R-T-U-R-E.”

Phil Everly

Jan. 3 | 74 | One-half of The Everly Brothers, the revered vocal duo of the 1950s and ’60s. Smoothly blending folk, bluegrass, country, and rock music, his was the upper harmony voice in many hits (“Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream”).

Al Feldstein

April 29 | 88 | Editorial brains behind Mad’s ascendancy from a little-known comic book in the 1950s to a must-read magazine for generations of America’s youth, using a satirical, irreverent style that altered the trajectory of the nation’s humor.

James Foley

c. Aug. 19 | 40 | First known captive American journalist beheaded by Islamic State fanatics in northern Syria, a freelance war correspondent and former teacher from Illinois.

Eileen Ford

July 9 | 92 | Matriarch of the modeling industry who in the 1940s co-founded with her husband Ford Models, and soon made it the top agency in the world.

Everett “Terry” Fullam

March 15 | 82 | Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien, Conn. (1972-1989) and a magnetic force in the charismatic renewal movement in The Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations.

James Garner

July 20 | 86 | Film and television actor best known as gambler Bret Maverick in the TV Western series Maverick (1957-1962) and for his Emmy-winning role as easygoing Jim Rockford, the cash-short ex-con turned private eye in The Rockford Files (1974-1980).

George Goodman

Jan. 3 | 83 | Known under the pseudonym “Adam Smith,” he was a journalist, business book author (The Money Game, Paper Money), and Emmy-winning TV host who made economics understandable to millions of people.

Benedict Groeschel

Oct. 3 | 81 | Well-known Catholic priest, author, speaker, co-founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and colorful host of the Sunday Night Live show on Catholic TV’s EWTN channel.

Tony Gwynn

June 16 | 54 | Baseball Hall of Fame winner of a record eight National League annual batting championships while collecting a total of 3,141 hits in his 20 seasons as rightfielder for the San Diego Padres, batting a career average of .338 (with a seasonal high of .394 in 1994).

Denham Harman

Nov. 25 | 98 | Medical scientist who developed the “free radical” theory of aging in the 1950s and beyond, which gave rise to the dietary supplement industry’s mass marketing of antioxidents, and is now the basis for wide research into the causes of cancer, cardiovascular problems, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases.

Bob Hastings

June 30 | 89 | Radio actor in the 1930s who graduated to numerous character and voice roles in movies and television, best known for playing Lt. Elroy Carpenter in McHale’s Navy (1962-1966).

Alice Herz-Sommer

Feb. 23 | 110 | Prague-born concert pianist from a Jewish family who survived two years in a Nazi concentration camp; believed to be the oldest known Holocaust survivor at the time of her death.

Steve Hill

March 9 | 60 | Visiting Pentecostal evangelist whose preaching at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Fla., sparked a mega-revival in 1995 that kept him there for more than five years, attracting more than 4 million visitors from all over the world, church officials said.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Feb. 2 | 46 | Creative film and stage actor, winner of an Academy Award for Best Actor in his role as Truman Capote in Capote (2005).

Christopher Hogwood

Sept. 24 | 73 | English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist, he was an authority on historically informed performance and a leading figure in the early music revival of the late 20th century.

Stanley M. Horton

July 12 | 98 | Long recognized as the world’s foremost Pentecostal theologian, a respected scholar, educator, and writer (What the Bible Says About the Holy Spirit).

Nelson Bunker Hunt

Oct. 21 | 88 | Texas oilman briefly reputed to be the richest man in the world. Yet he lived modestly, was a nearly lifetime member of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, chaired the Texas Bible Society, donated to conservative political and Christian causes, and was the initial major funder of Campus Crusade’s Jesus film.

P.D. James

Nov. 27 | 94 | Queen of modern mystery writing, a British author whose starkly realistic novels (she wrote 20) have sold in the millions worldwide, some adapted for film and TV.

Frank Jobe

March 6 | 88 | Orthopedist for the Los Angeles Dodgers who in 1974 performed a pioneering transplant procedure that enabled left-handed ace Tommy John to pitch again. As of last year, more than 1,000 Major League players had undergone the Tommy John procedure.

Russell Johnson

Jan. 16 | 89 | Veteran actor who played bad guys in Westerns and TV dramas, then landed a role in the TV comedy series Gilligan’s Island, best remembered as one of seven castaways, “The Professor” Roy Hinkley.

Justin Kaplan

March 14 | 88 | Harvard professor who wrote acclaimed biographies of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Lincoln Steffens, and later became the editor of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. His first book, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain (1966), won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.

Casey Kasem

June 15 | 82 | Creator in 1970 of the syndicated pop music countdown radio show, American Top 40, and its later TV version. Off radio, he was the voice of Shaggy in the cartoon series Scooby-Doo.

Bel Kaufman

July 25 | 103 | Former high-school teacher and single mother whose bestselling 1965 autobiographical novel, Up the Down Staircase, depicted the sometimes crazy life and work of the American high school.

Charles Keating

April 1 | 90 | Financier best known for his role in the politically tinged (“the Keating Five”) savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s that cost investors, taxpayers, and institutions an estimated $150 billion—with four years in prison for him.

Richard Kiel

Sept. 10 | 74 | Tall, menacing, steel-toothed, cable-crunching villain “Jaws” in James Bond movies.

Ralph Kiner

Feb. 6 | 91 | Baseball Hall of Fame slugger who won or tied for the National League lead in home runs each of his seven seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1946-1952), with a still-standing record 369 homers in a 10-year career. Forced off the field by injury, for more than 50 years he was a colorful member of the New York Mets broadcast team.

Stephanie Kwolek

June 18 | 90 | DuPont chemist credited with the creation of Kevlar in 1965, used for products ranging from gloves and rope to life-saving, bullet-resistant vests and helmets.

Jim Lange

Feb. 25 | 81 | Veteran TV game-show personality who was the original host of ABC’s The Dating Game in on-and-off versions from 1965 into the 1980s.

Donald Levine

May 22 | 86 | Korean War veteran and Hasbro toy company designer who developed the uniformed “G.I. Joe” (with 21 moving parts), toydom’s first action figure, in time for the 1964 Christmas shopping season.

Cynthia Lynn

March 10 | 76 | Actress who appeared in many popular TV series, including as Helga, Colonel Wilhelm Klink’s secretary in the CBS sitcom Hogan’s Heroes in 1965. In film she starred opposite Marlin Brando in Bedtime Story.

Sheila MacRae

March 6 | 92 | Actress and singer who played tolerant wife Alice Kramden in the 1960s revival version of the Jackie Gleason TV series The Honeymooners. MacRae and her husband Gordon starred in the movie musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel.

Dave Madden

Jan. 16 | 82 | Actor and comedian who played the grumpy child-bugging band manager on the 1970s TV series The Partridge Family.

Tom Magliozzi

Nov. 3 | 77 | Older brother of the jovial, wisecracking duo Click and Clack who hosted NPR’s super-popular “Car Talk” show for 35 years, dispensing car-repair and diagnostics advice to call-in listeners. Tom (known for his boisterous laughs) and sibling Ray were indeed auto mechanics, among other business pursuits.

Jeb Stuart Magruder

May 11 | 79 | Former Nixon aide who spent seven months in prison for his confessed role in the Watergate scandal, made a spiritual turnaround, worked for Young Life, went to Princeton Seminary, and was ordained as a Presbyterian in 1981, serving as a staff minister at churches in California, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Christopher Mitchell

July 10 | 63 | Evangelical historian, writer, and a leading expert on the life and works of renowned Christian writer C.S. Lewis. He was director of the Marion E. Wade study center at Wheaton College (1994-2013).

Jerrie Mock

Sept. 30 | 88 | Ohio housewife who in 1964 was the first female pilot to fly solo around the world—23,000 miles in about 29 days, in a Cessna 180.

Myles Munroe

Nov. 9 | 60 | Prominent black charismatic evangelical leader from the Bahamas, author, and popular speaker in many churches, conferences, and leadership gatherings. A graduate and former teacher and governing board member of Oral Roberts University, he headed a Bahamas-based ministry; one of nine killed in a jet crash in Freeport.

Ed Nelson

Aug. 9 | 85 | Actor best known as Dr. Michael Rossi in the 1960s TV soap series Peyton Place.

Jimmy C. Newman

June 21 | 86 | Grand Ole Opry singer from Louisiana known for hits like “Cry, Cry, Darling” (1954) and “A Fallen Star” (1957), which reached No. 2 on the Billboard country chart.

Chester Nez

June 4 | 93 | Last living member of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers recruited by the U.S. military in WWII to create a code the Japanese couldn’t break—taking part in every U.S. Marines assault in the Pacific.

Mike Nichols

Nov. 19 | 83 | Starting out with Elaine May as a popular genre-changing comedy duo on stage and TV in the late 1950s, he became a prolific award-winning director of Hollywood and Broadway hits, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Barefoot in the Park, and others.

Chuck Noll

June 13 | 82 | Hall of Fame football coach who built the “Steel Curtain” Pittsburgh Steelers into one of the powerhouses of the 1970s, the only NFL coach to win four Super Bowl titles (1974, 1975, 1978, 1979).

Sherwin B. Nuland

March 3 | 83 | Former surgeon, medical ethicist at Yale, and opponent of assisted suicide who wrote the 1994 award-winning bestseller How We Die.

Kate O’Mara

March 30 | 74 | British actress known for her role in the 1980s prime-time soap opera Dynasty as Cassandra “Caress” Morrell, the snarky sister to Joan Collins’ Alexis Colby.

Hiroo Onoda

Jan. 16 | 91 | Last Japanese soldier to surrender after WWII, having hid in the Philippines jungle for 29 years after the war ended, and only after his former commander personally rescinded his orders that the soldier stay behind and spy on U.S. troops.

Ian Paisley

Sept. 12 | 88 | Fiery, hard-line Free Presbyterian preacher and politician in the Catholic vs. Protestant war in Northern Ireland that began in the 1960s. In a remarkable turnaround, he became a peacemaker, eventually agreeing to a 1998 power-sharing agreement and serving as a co-leader in the provincial parliament, and was for years a member of Britain’s House of Commons.

Don Pardo

Aug. 18 | 96 | The resonant-voiced NBC radio and television announcer most remembered as the announcer on Saturday Night Live until 2009. He also was announcer for NBC game shows The Price Is Right (1956-1963) and Jeopardy! (1964-1975).

Mel Patton

May 9 | 89 | Double Olympic gold medalist in track (London 1948) who overcame a broken leg as a child and became known as “the world’s fastest human” after setting world records for the 100-yard dash in 1948 and the 220 in 1949.

J. Dwight Pentecost

April 28 | 99 | Theologian, pastor, author, and longtime professor at Dallas Seminary who taught until age 98, best known for his monumental 670-page book on Bible prophecy, Things to Come.

Fred Phelps

March 19 | 84 | Disbarred civil rights lawyer and controversial, gay- and America-hating activist preacher who in the 1950s founded Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Harold Ramis

Feb. 24 | 69 | Actor, director, and writer specializing in comedy, best known for his acting roles in Ghostbusters and Stripes; he also co-wrote both films. As a writer-director, his films include Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Groundhog Day.

Oscar de la Renta

Oct. 20 | 82 | American fashion designer of upscale ready-to-wear and exclusive gowns for celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Garner, and others—including First Ladies Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama.

Joan Rivers

Sept. 4 | 81 | Queen of insult comedy, frequent guest host on NBC TV’s The Tonight Show over two decades, and Johnny Carson’s handpicked heir to succeed him; instead he banned her in 1986 after she launched a competing (and short-lived) late-night show on Fox. She finally reinvented herself as an acerbic celebrity host for E! Entertainment.

Mickey Rooney

April 6 | 93 | Legendary versatile actor and entertainer who anchored the popular “Andy Hardy” movies (1937-1946). Rooney performed in more than 200 films starting with silent movies as a child in the 1920s, made countless TV appearances, and starred in the long-running Broadway hit musical Sugar Babies; but his personal life was tumultuous, including eight marriages that ended in divorce. In a 2011 video interview, he described how to live: “Jesus Christ is your personal savior, and leave the troubles and everything to God.” He lived his final years with his son Mickey Jr. and wife, who lead an evangelical Christian ministry in Southern California.

Richard Mellon Scaife

July 4 | 82 | Hot-tempered, quick-spoken billionaire heir to the Mellon banking and oil fortune, publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Maximilian Schell

Feb. 1 | 83 | Austrian-born movie actor most famous for his Oscar-winning role as Hans Rolfe in Judgment at Nuremberg.

James R. Schlesinger

March 27 | 85 | Pipe-smoking Harvard-educated economist and Cold War strategist who, in the 1970s, served as CIA director and Defense secretary under Richard Nixon, then headed the new Department of Energy under Jimmy Carter.

Pete Seeger

Jan. 27 | 94 | Songwriter and singer who led a revival of folk music during the 1960s, the era of civil rights causes, beatniks, hippies, anti-war protests, and his own leftist activism. Among his hit songs: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

Ariel Sharon

Jan. 11 | 85 | One of the most influential figures who helped create and govern the modern state of Israel—as a commander who led the Israeli army through the crucial battles, and as a politician and prime minister who fostered the growth of Jewish settlements but in the mid-2000s moderated his stance toward the Palestinian Authority.

Eduard Shevardnadze

July 7 | 86 | The Soviet Union’s final foreign minister, who in the late 1980s helped Mikhail Gorbachev implement perestroika, the “restructuring” of the Soviet system that led to the independence of the Soviet-bloc nations in eastern Europe and Soviet republics. He was elected president of troubled former republic Georgia in 1995 but resigned in 2003 amid corruption allegations.

Alexander Shulgin

June 2 | 88 | Chemist and psychopharmacologist who in 1976 resynthesized the Merck drug MDMA and tested its potential use in psychotherapy. Therapists variously nicknamed it “the love drug,” “empathy,” and “Adam,” but a Catholic seminarian in Dallas gave it the name that stuck and spread around the world: “Ecstasy.”

Larry Speakes

July 10 | 74 | Mississippi newspaper editor and White House press aide who became the sometimes controversial public voice of the Reagan administration (1981-1987) after press secretary James Brady was wounded in the Reagan assassination attempt.

John G. Sperling

Aug. 22 | 93 | California history professor who in 1978 founded for-profit University of Phoenix. His school ostensibly targeted working adults across dozens of states, but controversies over student aid, placement, and other issues saw enrollment plunge by half in recent years.

S. Donald Stookey

Nov. 4 | 99 | Scientist at Corning Glass Works for 47 years who in 1953 accidentally overheated a piece of his FotoForm glass, creating the first glass ceramic, and leading to his creation of CorningWare in 1957—just one of his multimillion-dollar inventions.

Marcia Strassman

Oct. 25 | 66 | Actress known for leading roles in the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (as Julie) and M*A*S*H (as nurse Margie Cutler), and co-star in the 1989 Disney comedy movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

Robert S. Strauss

March 19 | 95 | Washington powerbroker and a former Democratic Party chairman who managed Jimmy Carter’s two presidential campaigns but also advised Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who sent him to Moscow as U.S. ambassador during the unraveling of the Soviet Union.

Elaine Stritch

July 17 | 89 | Raspy-voiced Broadway actress in productions such as Stephen Sondheim’s Company and Follies, where she sang “I’m Still Here”—which became her theme song in concerts and recitals as she struggled with personal issues.

Carol Ann Susi

Nov. 11 | 62 | Actress best known as the screechy yelling voice of the unseen Mrs. Wolowitz on the CBS TV series The Big Bang Theory.

Viktor Tikhonov

Nov. 24 | 84 | Russian ice hockey coach who led his teams to three Olympic gold medals (1984, ’88, ’92) and eight world championships, but lost to the United States in the 1980 Olympics “Miracle on Ice” game.

James A. Traficant Jr.

Sept. 27 | 73 | Nine-term Ohio pro-life, populist Democratic congressman known for outrageous statements and styles, who was convicted on corruption/bribery charges in 2002, becoming the second member of Congress to be expelled since the Civil War.

Maria von Trapp

Feb. 18 | 99 | The last surviving member and second-eldest daughter of the musical family whose escape from Nazi-occupied Austria was the basis for the film and Broadway musical The Sound of Music.

Garrick Utley

Feb. 21 | 74 | NBC News foreign correspondent, weekend anchor, morning-show host, and moderator of Meet the Press.

Jerry Vale

May 18 | 83 | Smooth-voiced crooner of romantic ballads who hit the top of the pop charts in the 1950s and ’60s (“You Can Never Give Me Back My Heart,” “Al Di La,” “You Don’t Know Me,” and others).

Ralph Waite

Feb. 13 | 85 | Actor, voice artist, and political activist best known for his role as John Walton, the kind-hearted father of a Depression-era Virginia family on the TV series The Waltons (1972-1981), which he occasionally directed.

Eli Wallach

June 24 | 98 | Brooklyn-born venerable character actor known for playing Mexican hombres in the 1960s film classics The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (with Clint Eastwood) and The Magnificent Seven (with Yul Brynner and other stars), among his more than 90 film credits.

Lawrence E. Walsh

March 19 | 102 | New York corporate lawyer who served as the federal independent counsel who prosecuted government officials in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra arms-exchange-for-hostages scandal, only to see the convictions overturned on appeal and most officials later pardoned.

Robin Williams

Aug. 11 | 63 | National superstar in comedic entertainment—the engaging alien in the TV series Mork & Mindy, the agitating disc jockey in Good Morning, Vietnam, the cross-dressing father in Mrs. Doubtfire, the voice of Genie in the animated Aladdin. In real life, he struggled with depression and substance abuse that ended in apparent suicide.

Bobby Womack

June 27 | 70 | Raspy-voiced soul singer, guitarist, and songwriter who wrote “It’s All Over Now”—The Rolling Stones’ first No. 1 hit—in 1964, followed by R&B hits sung by him or recorded by some of the biggest names in pop music.

Louis Zamperini

July 3 | 97 | Olympic distance runner, WWII bombardier, survivor of a 1943 crash in the Pacific and 47 days on a life raft, badly mistreated Japanese POW, stressed and boozing postwar veteran, and changed-life convert in the history-making 1949 Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles. Graham helped him launch a new career as a lay evangelist. His story was told in Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 bestseller Unbroken, its movie version released Dec. 25 (see “Unspoken,” Dec. 27).

Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

May 2 | 95 | Actor who co-starred as the impeccable private detective on TV’s 77 Sunset Strip (1958-1964) and starred as Inspector Lewis Erskine on The FBI (1965-1974).

Don Zimmer

June 4 | 83 | Major league baseball legend who spent 66 years in the game as a player (notably the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers in the 1950s), coach, manager, and adviser (Tampa Bay Rays).

End of year departures

A list of prominent deaths from 2014 that occurred after WORLD Magazine’s 2014 News of the Year issue went to press.

Ralph H. Baer

Dec. 6 | 92 | An electronics engineer who in the 1960s invented the first console video game system, making it possible to connect electronic devices and computer software to television sets.

Sy Berger

Dec. 14 | 91 | Brooklyn chewing gum executive who helped design the 1952 Topps baseball trading cards that sparked a still-current pop-culture marvel for kids and collectors of all ages.

Christine Cavanaugh

Dec. 22 | 51 | Actress who was the voice of the title character pig in the 1995 film Babe, Goslyn Mallard in Disney’s Darkwing Duck, Chuckie Finster in Nickelodeon’s Rugrats (1991-2003), and many other cartoon characters.

Joe Cocker

Dec. 22 | 70 | Gravely voiced British pop singer best known for his hit cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which he performed at Woodstock in 1969.

Dick Dale

Dec. 26 | 88 | Singer, saxophone player, and often the annual Santa Claus on TV’s The Lawrence Welk Show (1951-1982).

Larry Henley

Dec. 18 | 77 | Nashville singer (the falsetto voice in the Newbeats’ 1964 hit, “Bread and Butter”) and songwriter who co-wrote “Wind Beneath My Wings,” often a standard at weddings.

Edward Herrmann

Dec. 31 | 71 | Award-winning television and film actor perhaps best known for playing the kindhearted patriarch on TV’s Gilmore Girls and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Annie and other movies.

Richard C. Hottelet

Dec. 17 | 97 | The last hired (in 1944) and last living member of the “Murrow’s Boys,” the CBS World War II combat news correspondents recruited and directed by broadcast standards–setter Edward R. Murrow. Hottelet flew along on bombing missions, and his was the first eyewitness broadcast report of the D-Day allied invasion. He later was CBS’s United Nations correspondent for 25 years.

Mary Ann Mobley

Dec. 9 | 77 | Mississippi’s first Miss America (1959), she went on to a successful acting career on stage (Guys and Dolls), in film (she starred in 1965 with Elvis Presley in Girl Happy and Harem Scarum), and television (Diff’rent Strokes, Perry Mason, Fantasy Island, and many others).

Earl Radmacher

Dec. 8 | 83 | Author, speaker, and long-time professor and president (1965-1990) of evangelical Western Seminary in Portland, Ore.

Luise Rainer

Dec. 30 | 104 | Jewish actress who left Austria and Germany for Hollywood in 1935 at MGM’s urging. She became the first star to win back-to-back Oscars as best actress, in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). But stardom faded quickly, she abruptly quit her three-year career, returning to Europe for a quieter life as wife, mother, and mountain climber.

Ken Weatherwax

Dec. 7 | 59 | The young-boy actor who played “Pugsley,” the son fascinated by anything terribly morbid in the 1960s TV series The Addams Family.

Merrill Womach

Dec. 28 | 87 | Former Presbyterian pastor, creator of a music system and library for funeral homes, inspirational speaker, gospel singer, and recording artist who remained undeterred after his face was badly and permanently disfigured in a near-fatal fiery private plane crash in Oregon in 1961.

Gleb Yakunin

Dec. 25 | 80 | A Russian Orthodox priest and longstanding advocate for religious freedom in the Soviet Union who was defrocked then excommunicated for his criticism of the church’s collusion with the state, but under perestroika wrote a law used to open churches in Russia after the Soviet Union’s fall.