Departures: Sanford and Son star dead at 79

Demond Wilson

A groundbreaking television actor who starred in one of the most popular shows of its time, Wilson died Jan. 30. He was 79. After a stint as an infantry soldier in the Vietnam War, Wilson made his way into acting and eventually landed a role opposite revered comedian Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son in 1972. Wilson played it straight, giving the veteran comedian space to execute punch lines. The Norman Lear show proved a ratings hit, peaking at No. 2 just behind All in the Family. Later, Wilson would become a Pentecostal minister and pastor a church in Los Angeles. In 1995, Wilson founded Restoration House of America, a vocational ministry to support former inmates.

Catherine O’Hara

An actress who rose from the ranks of Canadian sketch comedy to become one of Hollywood’s most reliable laughs, O’Hara died Jan. 30. She was 71. O’Hara broke through as a cast member with the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV alongside John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Eugene Levy. For much of her career, O’Hara’s best comedic work was performed alongside her fellow SCTV alumni. While starring as the mother in Home Alone, she shared a memorable dialogue with Candy. She appeared alongside Levy in three ­mockumentaries—Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind. She also earned an Emmy for her part in the CBC Television comedy Schitt’s Creek, also with Levy.

William Foege

An epidemiologist and medical missionary whose innovations helped lead to the eradication of one of the world’s deadliest diseases, Foege died Jan. 24. He was 89. After medical and public health school, Foege became a Lutheran medical missionary in Nigeria. In 1966, he was tasked with containing the spread of smallpox in a remote Nigerian village. Without enough supplies for mass vaccination, Foege developed a new approach. By contact tracing those who contracted smallpox, Foege vaccinated those in proximity to the disease who faced greater risk. Foege’s “ring vaccination” strategy proved successful and became the primary method to control the spread of smallpox, which was declared eradicated in 1980.

John L. Allen Jr.

A veteran reporter serving at the Vatican who provided an inside look into one of the most complex and opaque organizations in the world, Allen died Jan. 22. He was 61. A Kansas native, Allen began writing for the National Catholic Reporter in 1997 and opened the publication’s Vatican bureau in Rome in 2000. There, Allen built relationships in the notoriously secretive organization and became the journalist other journalists would read when they wanted to understand the inner workings of the Catholic Church. He took his insider knowledge to CNN in 2005 following the death of Pope John Paul II and joined the staff of The Boston Globe in 2014 while simultaneously launching the Catholic news website Crux.

Gladys West

A mathematician and computer programmer whose calculations sharpened our understanding of the shape of the Earth, West died Jan. 17. She was 95. Born in a sharecropping ­community in rural Virginia, West pursued education as a means of escaping poverty. After graduating with degrees in mathematics from Virginia State College, she took a civilian job with what would later become known as the Navy Surface Warfare Center. Eventually she led a team of computer programmers in precisely defining the shape of the Earth. Armed with West’s data, government scientists developed the Global Positioning System. She was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018.