Departures: Italian fashionista left mark on Hollywood

Giorgio Armani

A fashion icon and businessman who ­created a world-­renowned luxury brand, Armani died Sept. 4. He was 91. Coming of age in war-­ravaged Italy in the 1950s, Armani found his life’s work while selling menswear in a Milan retail shop. Eventually he began designing clothes and opened his own fashion house in 1975, fusing luxury branding with off-the-rack convenience. Armani generated international acclaim when he placed his designs in popular movies, working as costume designer for films such as American Gigolo and The Untouchables. During his career, Armani popularized power suits for women and pushed back against the proliferation of underweight models by requiring them to meet BMI minimums.

Lee Roy Jordan

A championship football player in college and the NFL who anchored the famed Doomsday Defense of the Dallas Cowboys, Jordan died Aug. 30 at the age of 84. An Alabama native, Jordan played linebacker for Paul “Bear” Bryant and the University of Alabama. By 1961, Jordan led a fearsome Crimson Tide defense to six shutouts and a national championship. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983. In the professional ranks, Jordan became a defensive captain and started a Cowboys record of 154 straight games at middle linebacker and in 1972 helped the Cowboys to their first championship in Super Bowl VI. Jordan retired in 1976 but still ranks second on the club’s all-time tackles list.

Randy “Duke” Cunningham

A decorated Navy hero who later fell into disgrace as a California congressman, Cunningham died Aug. 27. He was 83. Cunningham flew the F-4 Phantom II fighter jet during the Vietnam War, becoming one of a handful of American fighter aces during the conflict. For his service, he received a Navy Cross, a pair of Silver Stars, numerous Air Medals, and a Purple Heart. Cunningham ran for Congress in 1990 and won a narrow victory. A member of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, Cunningham pleaded guilty in 2005 to taking bribes from defense contractors in exchange for securing government contracts. He resigned from Congress and spent more than eight years in prison.

James Dobson

A psychologist who became an evangelical leader fighting what he called a “civil war of values,” Dobson died Aug. 21 at age 89. The son of a Nazarene minister, Dobson was a professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine. With his 1970 book Dare To Discipline, he began positioning himself as an evangelical home-life guru advocating for corporal punishment and traditional gender roles. He founded Focus on the Family in 1977. Along with dispensing child-rearing advice through his growing broadcast empire, Dobson also turned his attention toward politics and became an influential voice of the Religious Right, spending decades pushing back against what he saw as key elements of American cultural rot.

Frank Caprio

A Providence, R.I., municipal judge who became an unlikely social media star with hundreds of millions of views online, Caprio died Aug. 20. He was 88. After a stint serving on the Providence City Council, Caprio became a municipal court judge in 1985. With a docket full of minor traffic violations, Caprio began telecasting cases from his courtroom on a local cable access channel in the 1980s. Television stations later picked up the footage for a show that became known as Caught in Providence. Caprio’s YouTube channel shows him navigating cases with his trademark good cheer and compassion. At last count, Caprio’s courtroom show netted his channel nearly 3 million subscribers and more than 829 million views.

Mike Castle

A centrist Republican who loomed large in Delaware politics for decades, Castle died Aug. 14. He was 86. Castle cut his political teeth in the Blue Hen State as a member of the state legislature in the 1960s and ’70s. He later succeeded Pete du Pont as governor in 1985. Term-limited out of office, Castle won election to Delaware’s lone House of Representatives seat in 1992, an office he held for 18 years. Castle helped shape the 1996 welfare reform act and created the 50 state quarters program. Running for Joe Biden’s vacated Senate seat in 2010, Castle lost the Republican primary to anti-­establishment firebrand Christine O’Donnell—Castle’s first electoral defeat. O’Donnell would later lose the general election by a wide margin.