Notable deaths last week
Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for Academy Awards three times for her portrayals of strong-willed women and played a scheming baroness in “The Sound of Music,” has died at 91.
Parker was nominated for Oscars in 1950, 1951 and 1955, but then saw her career begin to wane in the early 1960s. Her last memorable role came in 1965’s “The Sound of Music,” in which she played the scheming baroness who loses Christopher Plummer to Julie Andrews.
She took on one of her most challenging roles in 1955 in “Interrupted Melody,” portraying opera star Marjorie Lawrence, who continued her career after contracting polio. Faced with having to lip-sync nine arias in three languages, she holed up in a Lake Arrowhead cabin for two weeks and played records eight to 10 hours a day.
The result: her third Oscar nomination.
Other notable films included “The Man with the Golden Arm” and “A Hole in the Head” (both opposite Frank Sinatra) and “The King and Four Queens” with Gable.
British author Colin Wilson, who gained fame with his first book, “The Outsider,” has died. He was 82.
The 1956 publication of “The Outsider,” a study of creative icons — from Vincent van Gogh to Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche — that espoused a brand of existentialist individualism, catapulted the writer to fame.
Nothing else Wilson wrote achieved the same level of success, though he went on produce more than 150 books, exploring interests in serial killers, extraterrestrials and the occult.
Former Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Charles M. Vest, who began its initiative to offer free courses online and oversaw expansions in its research fields, has died at age 72. Vest led MIT from 1990 to 2004. During his tenure, MIT expanded its research in cognitive science, genomic medicine, biological engineering and nanotechnology.
Harry F. Rosenthal, an Associated Press writer who covered America’s golden age of space exploration, presidents back to Harry Truman and whatever caught his impish eye in the stuffy halls of power, has died. He was 86.
From the start, Rosenthal was more than a top-tier wire service newsman, fast and accurate. He was a wordsmith. He sweated the details, then turned those details into irresistible prose. In the old days when newsrooms still reeked of cigarettes, he would smoke and pace and fret while pondering just how he wanted to tell a story.
“Writing bugs me,” he said, “but it’s the only way I like to make a living.”
He wrote about the My Lai massacre prosecution of Lt. William Calley, the trials of assassin Sirhan Sirhan and would-be assassin John Hinckley. He covered civil rights marches, political campaigns and conventions, and the Watergate scandal that destroyed Nixon’s presidency.
One of his greatest ambitions, never realized, was to be the first journalist to go into space.
Wilfred Billey, a Navajo Code Talker, whose words are inscribed on congressional medals given to his group and who fought to have a World War II comrade recognized for his service, has died in New Mexico. He was 90.
He was one of hundreds of Navajo Code Talkers who stumped the Japanese during World War II by relaying messages in their native language.
He fought in battles at Tarawa Atoll, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa with the all-Navajo 297th Platoon, part of the 1st Battalion in the 2nd Division.
Arthur Hou, a specialist in climate science and space-based observation of clouds, who was the chief scientist for a NASA satellite project to measure precipitation around the world, has died at 66.
Ron Williams, a veteran Associated Press technology manager who began his career with AP as a teenager maintaining the teletype machines in the Atlanta bureau, has died. He was 63.
Police say Kate Barry, the daughter of actress Jane Birkin and James Bond composer John Barry, has died in Paris.
They said the 46-year-old, best known as a fashion photographer and who was raised for years by the late French singer Serge Gainsbourg during his relationship with Birkin, was found Wednesday.
William L. Booker, one of the black military aviators known as the Tuskegee Airmen, has died at the age of 90.
Booker served as a navigator and flight engineer on B-25 bombers with the 477th Bombardment Group based at Godman Field, Ky. He flew with all-black crews with pilots trained in Alabama at Tuskegee Institute.
After World War II, he worked for Boeing for 34 years. He served 10 years as president of the local Tuskegee Airmen’s chapter
Christopher Evan Welch, the actor whose roles on New York stages led to a series of film and television parts, including a regular spot on AMC’s “Rubicon,” has died in Southern California.
His family said in a statement Wednesday that Welch died Dec. 2 in Santa Monica. He was 48 and had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
The Dallas-born actor won an Obie Award in 2000 for his performance in “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the New York Theatre Workshop.
On television, Welch had roles in “The Sopranos” and “The Good Wife,” in addition to the conspiracy-themed drama “Rubicon.”
Jim Hall, one of the leading jazz guitarists of the modern era, whose subtle technique, lyrical sound and introspective approach strongly influenced younger proteges such as Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, has died at age 83, his wife said.
Hall, who led his own trio since the mid-1960s, remained active until shortly before his death. Last month, his trio performed a concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room with guest guitarists John Abercrombie and Peter Bernstein. He had been planning a duo tour in Japan in January with bassist Ron Carter, a longtime partner.
Marvin Rabin, a music conductor who founded youth orchestras in Wisconsin and Massachusetts and whose students played at the White House and Carnegie Hall, has died after a brief illness, his family said. He was 97.
Rabin, who died Thursday in Madison, was a music visionary who devoted his life to making music accessible to children, said his eldest son, Ralph.
“He was always trying to make musical expression a possibility for children,” Ralph Rabin said. “He just had such a passion and love for music — seeing the community that it brings together, the depth of emotion it can touch.”
A former U.S. Senate candidate and diplomat described as one of the Illinois Republican Party’s most influential minds has died of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Richard Salisbury Williamson was 64.
Williamson, a Chicago attorney and Kenilworth resident, was a longtime leader in the Illinois GOP, serving most recently as a member of the Republican National Committee for Illinois since 2010. Among his many political accomplishments, one of his best-known undertakings was a nationally watched Senate race against Carol Moseley Braun in 1992. The Chicago Democrat went on to be the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
An Evanston native and Princeton graduate, Williamson was inspired to enter politics after watching his father serve as a local Republican precinct captain. He was chairman of the state Republican Party from 1999-2001.
UFC fighter Shane Del Rosario has died, nearly two weeks after the heavyweight had a heart attack. He was 30.
Del Rosario’s manager, Jason House, said the fighter’s doctors believe he had a congenital heart disorder. Del Rosario’s family is interested in starting a charitable foundation to aid research on long QT syndrome, the heart condition that may have contributed to the fighter’s sudden cardiac arrest last month.
Del Rosario had been a professional mixed martial artist since 2006, also competing in kickboxing and muay thai competitions. He was the first American winner of the WBC world heavyweight muay thai championship in 2007.
Quad/Graphics Inc. co-founder Betty Quadracci, who also was president of Milwaukee Magazine and a champion of the arts, has died at age 75, the printing company said.
Edouard Molinaro, nominated for an Oscar for directing “La Cage aux Folles,” a French farce about a gay couple that struck a chord with a broad range of audiences, has died at 85.
French President Francois Hollande’s office confirmed the death in a statement of condolence Saturday, praising Molinaro as “great, appealing and original” and a director who “conquered the public and the admiration of his peers at the same time.”
John Joseph Idzik, a former NFL assistant coach and father of New York Jets general manager John Idzik, has died. He was 85.