Notable deaths last week

• In 1975, Leonard Nimoy published an autobiography with the defiant title, "I Am Not Spock" - an attempt to show the world he had many more facets than the pointy-eared character that had come to define him.

Yet two decades later, after proving that with a career that became a rich blend of roles beyond "Star Trek" along with directing, writing and photography, he bowed to fate with "I Am Spock," a revisionist sequel.

Nimoy had come to appreciate Mr. Spock's enduring legacy and the inspiration the man of logic provided the actor and his fans alike.

"He's a part of me," he wrote in his second memoir. "Not a day passes that I don't hear that cool, rational voice commenting on some irrational aspect of the human condition."

"And if I'm not listening to Spock's voice, then I'm listening to the voices of those who know the Vulcan and consider him an old friend. ... It always amazes me and touches me to discover how deeply the series affected so many people's lives - people who chose careers in science, astronomy, space exploration, all because of one television show called Star Trek."

Nimoy had skillfully turned what could have been a caricature into a dignified, inspiringly intellectual and even touching figure, a half-human, half-Vulcan who was a multicultural and multiethnic touchstone, well before it was hip.

Nimoy died Friday of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his Los Angeles home, with family at his side, said his son, Adam Nimoy. He was 83. His final public statement, last Sunday on Twitter, was thoughtful and bittersweet.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory," he wrote, followed by his customary "LLAP" signoff - shorthand for "Live long and prosper," Spock's catch phrase.

The reaction to his death was swift, on Earth and in space.

"I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love," said William Shatner, whose often-emotional Captain Kirk was balanced by the composed Nimoy.

President Barack Obama said, "I loved Spock."

"Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy," Obama said in a statement. "Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek's optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity's future."

"Live Long and Prosper, Mr. (hashtag) Spock!" tweeted Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, aboard the International Space Station.

George Takei, Mr. Sulu of "Star Trek," called Nimoy a great man and friend.

"We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to 'Live Long and Prosper,' and you indeed did, friend," Takei said.

In 2009, he was back in a new big-screen version of "Star Trek," this time playing an older Spock who meets his younger self, played by Zachary Quinto. Upon the movie's debut, Nimoy told the AP that in his late 70s he was probably closer than ever to being as comfortable with himself as the logical Spock.

"I know where I'm going, and I know where I've been," he said. He reprised the role in the 2013 sequel "Star Trek Into Darkness."

Born in Boston to Jewish immigrants from Izyaslav, in what is now Ukraine, Nimoy was raised in an Italian section of the city where he said he felt the sting of anti-Semitism growing up.

After service in the Army, Nimoy returned to Hollywood, working as taxi driver, vacuum cleaner salesman, movie theater usher and other jobs while looking for acting work.

In 1954, he married Sandra Zober, whom he met at a Los Angeles theater in the Hollywood area, and they had two children, Julie and Adam. They divorced, and in 1988 he married Susan Bay, a film production executive.

• The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh transformed the University of Notre Dame into a school known almost as much for academics as for football, even if it meant challenging popes, presidents or legendary football coaches.

And he did it while championing human rights around the globe, from civil rights close to home - he joined hands with Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1964 rally and opened campus doors to women - to supporting Third World development. The work often took him far from campus, where the joke became that while God was everywhere, Hesburgh was everywhere but Notre Dame.

But Hesburgh, who died at age 97, spent enough time on campus while at the helm from 1952 to 1987 to build Notre Dame into an academic power.

He was featured on the cover of Time magazine a decade into his tenure for an article describing him as the most influential figure in the reshaping of Catholic education, and he was awarded 150 honorary degrees. During his tenure, student enrollment spiked and the school's endowment grew from $9 million to $350 million.

The charming and personable priest found as much ease meeting with heads of state as he did with students. His aim was constant: Better people's lives.

"I go back to an old Latin motto, opus justitiae pax: Peace is the work of justice," Hesburgh said in a 2001 interview. "We've known 20 percent of the people in the world have 80 percent of the goodies, which means the other 80 percent have to scrape by on 20 percent."

In a letter Friday to the student newspaper, President Jimmy Carter recalled his 40-year friendship with Hesburgh, saying he devoted his life to serving humanity and taking courageous stands.

"Father Hesburgh has made the world a better place - for those of us whose lives he has touched directly and as an inspiration for generations to come," Carter wrote.

In 1972, Notre Dame admitted its first undergraduate women - which Hesburgh called one of his proudest accomplishments.

Hesburgh supported the university's 2009 decision to invite President Barack Obama to speak at commencement. At least 70 bishops opposed Obama's appearance, citing Obama's support of abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. Hesburgh said universities were places where people of differing opinions could talk.

• Anthony Mason's game was grit over glitz, more force than flash.

That may not fit some New York stereotypes, but it was the perfect style for the Knicks of the 1990s, and made the rugged power forward a beloved bruiser by teammates and fans.

Mason has died, the Knicks said Saturday. He was 48.

Former teammate Patrick Ewing said his "heart is heavy" after learning Mason had died after recent heart problems.

"Mase came to play every night and was always ready to go to battle with me every time we stepped on the court together," Ewing said in a statement. "I will remember him for his strength, determination and perseverance."

Mason was a defensive force who played for six NBA teams from 1989-2003, a popular protector of superstars like Ewing and respected by opponents who knew they were in for punishment when they played against him.

"As a competitor, there was none fiercer than Anthony Mason. Standing on the opposite end of the playing field, coaching in those great Chicago/New York battles, No. 14 in the orange and blue always stood out," said Knicks President Phil Jackson, who coached the Chicago Bulls during their many matchups against the '90s Knicks.

Added Michael Jordan: "Mase was one of the toughest competitors of his era."

• Yasar Kemal, one of Turkey's best-known novelists whose focus on social injustices brought him into conflict with authority, died in Istanbul on Saturday. He was 91.

Kemal, best known for his first novel, "Ince Memed" or "Memed, My Hawk," also turned his pen to promoting Marxism during his early years and defending the rights of minorities in Turkey, including the Kurdish minority of which he was part.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reacted to Kemal's death by praising the writer's ability to "maintain his dissident attitude and express the truth without holding back at times when speaking the truth was hard."

Kemal won numerous international awards including the Legion d'honneur from the French government.

"I don't write about issues, I don't write for an audience, I don't even write for myself. I just write," Kemal said in an interview with the Guardian in 2008.

"Yes, there is rebellion in my novels, but it's rebellion against mortality. As long as man goes from one darkness to another, he will create myths for himself. The only difference between me and others is that I write mine down."

• Oscar Diaz, a former welterweight boxing contender whose career ended when he sustained a debilitating brain injury in a fight nearly seven years ago, has died. He was 32.

Diaz was in a coma for two months and spent seven months in a hospital after collapsing before the 11th round of a nationally televised USBA welterweight championship fight against Delvin Rodriguez in 2008. Diaz was 25 at the time.

• Earl Lloyd was a player and coach, an NBA champion and later a Hall of Famer. Within the basketball world, he's something much bigger.

He was a pioneer.

Lloyd, the first black player in NBA history, has died at 86.

"The NBA family has lost one of its patriarchs," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. "Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in an NBA game, was as inspirational as he was understated. He was known as a modest gentleman who played the game with skill, class, and pride. His legacy survives in the league he helped integrate, and the entire NBA family will strive to always honor his memory."

Lloyd made his NBA debut in 1950 for the Washington Capitols, just before black players Sweetwater Clifton and Chuck Cooper played their first games.

• Former AIG President and CEO Robert Benmosche, who led the insurer's turnaround after its $182 billion government bailout, has died of lung cancer at age 70, the company announced Friday.

Benmosche became AIG's CEO in August 2009, recruited for the job by the Obama administration. He had previously led the insurer MetLife.

• John B. Fairchild, who took Women's Wear Daily from dry fashion trade publication to an international industry force, died Friday at his Manhattan home after a long illness, the magazine confirmed. He was 87.

Fairchild headed his family's publishing business, Fairchild Publications Inc., for more than 30 years, including a long stint as the tyrannical editor in chief of WWD and founding chief of W magazine.

Fairchild wrote several books, including memoirs. Among his numerous accolades was the Council of Fashion Designers of America's lifetime recognition award in 1997.

• Jerry Lambert, a leading jockey on the Southern California circuit in the 1960s and '70s who rode Native Diver to three consecutive Hollywood Gold Cup victories, has died. He was 74.

• Ralph Nobles, a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later led efforts to save thousands of acres of San Francisco Bay wetlands from development, died following complications of pneumonia, according to his daughter. He was 94.

• Ben Woolf, an actor on "American Horror Story," has died after being injured in a street accident, a spokesman said. He was 34.

The 4-foot-4 actor was hospitalized in critical condition after he was hit by the side mirror of a passing vehicle on an LA-area street.

Woolf was a cast member on the FX show in its first season, in 2011, when he played a character called the Infantata. In the latest installment, "American Horror Story: Freak Show," he appeared as Meep.

• A New Jersey insurance salesman convicted of plotting to kill his wife in a crime that inspired the bestselling book "Blind Faith" and a TV movie has died.

New Jersey's Department of Corrections said Robert O. Marshall died at South Woods State Prison in southern New Jersey. Marshall was convicted in 1986 of arranging the slaying of his wife, Maria. She was found shot to death in a picnic area along the Garden State Parkway as the couple returned from a night in Atlantic City. Prosecutors contended Marshall had his wife killed so he could collect a $1.5 million life insurance policy.

• Legendary jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, who mentored Miles Davis and Quincy Jones and played in the orchestras of both Count Basie and Duke Ellington and on "The Tonight Show," has died. He was 94.

During a career spanning more than seven decades, Terry was a mentor to generations of jazz musicians, starting with Miles Davis, who first met Terry as a teenager growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois, across the river from Terry's hometown.

In 1991, Terry was named an NEA Jazz Master, the nation's highest jazz honor, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

• Bruce Sinofsky, an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-award winning documentary filmmaker who gained prominence for his works that shined a spotlight on a child murder case in a small Arkansas town, has died. He was 58.

Sinofsky and Berlinger drew praise and attention for their "Paradise Lost" trilogy, a series of films about the case of three teenage boys convicted in 1994 of killing three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The films, released in 1996, 2004 and 2011, raised questions about evidence used to convict the teens, who became known as the West Memphis Three.

The teens each spent 18 years in prison, but in 2011 they were allowed to enter a plea in which they asserted their innocence while acknowledging there was enough evidence to possibly convict them. The initial film in the trilogy, "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," went on to win an Emmy, while the final film, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" was nominated for an Academy Award.

Sinofsky and Berlinger also collaborated on the critically acclaimed "Brother's Keeper," which documented the case of an elderly man accused of killing his brother, and on "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," a documentary of the renowned heavy metal band.