Lives Less Ordinary

Ah, the lives they lived and the world they made! Presented in order of the year of their birth,  the list of the notable passings of 2008 captures the full arc of the twentieth century, encompassing world wars both hot and cold, the exploration of outer and inner space, the advent of television and rock music, the fall of painting and the rise of sexual liberation, miraculous medicine, and all manner of feats and failures.

Albert Hoffman (b. 1906), the Swisst chemist who discovered lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and synthesized psylocibin;

 

Michael DeBakey (b. 1908), the American physician, inventor, and Congressional Gold Medal winner who pioneering devices and procedures first made open heart surgery possible, and whose continuing research made it commonplace and effective;

 

Studs Terkel (b. 1912), the American author, historian, and personality whose oral histories such  as Hard Times and The Good War made the past come to life;

 

Mark Felt (b. 1913), the American FBI man who devoted his career to J. Edgar Hoover and then leaked key Watergate information as “Deep Throat” to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward;

 

Robert Mondavi (b. 1913), the American winemaker whose business savvy and technical innovations introduced the world to Napa Valley wines;

 

William Gibson (b. 1914), the American playwright who brought The Miracle Worker to the stage;

 

Forrest J. Ackerman (b. 1917), the American science-fiction fan who more or less invented the concept of being a science-fiction fan, and whose advocacy, curation, and publishing efforts helped bring science fiction to the attention of several generations;

 

Arthur C. Clarke (b. 1917), the British-Sri Lankan engineer, inventor, author, and science popularizer who first noted that geostationary satellites would be powerful communications devices, and who wrote numerous classic novels and screenplays including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood’s End;

 

Jerry Wexler (b. 1917), the American music writer, producer, and Rock And Roll Hall of Famer who founded Atlantic Records and shaped the careers of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Wilson Pickett, and Bob Dylan;

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918), the Russian novelist and historian and Nobel laureate whose exposed Soviet prison camps in One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch and The Gulag Archipelago;

 

Edmund Hillary (b. 1919), the New Zealander mountaineer who, along with Tenzing Norgay, made the first known ascent of Mount Everest in 1953;

 

Suharto (b. 1921), the Indonesian president who ruled with immense power from 1967 to 1998, with significant advances in the nation’s economy and infrastructure but also with a grisly 24-year occupation of East Timor and widespread violence, repression, and corruption;

 

Madelyn Dunham (b. 1922), the American banker who helped raise her grandson in Hawaii from the time he was about ten years old, and who helped guide him through his life until two days before he was elected President of the United States;

 

Dick Martin (b. 1922), the American comedian and director whose extensive radio and television career included the counterculture breakthrough show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In;”

 

Paul Scofield (b. 1922), the British actor whose precisely-tuned delivery brought him wide acclaim, particularly for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in the stage and film versions of A Man For All Seasons;

 

Bettie Page (b. 1923), the American model whose iconic pin-up images defined a new art form and helped launch the nascent sexual revolution in the 1950s;

 

Charlton Heston (b. 1923), the American actor whose flinty, hard-nosed characters helped make classics of films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, The Agony And The Ecstacy, Planet Of The Apes, and Soylent Green;

 

William F. Buckley (b. 1925), the American author, commentator, host of Firing Line, and founder of the National Review, whose intelligence and wit shaped the modern American conservative movement;

 

Robert Mulligan (b. 1925), the American director of To Kill A Mockingbird, The Summer of ’42, and The Other;

 

Paul Newman (b. 1925), the iconic American actor and humanitarian whose legendary film career included The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Verdict, The Color of Money, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition;

 

Robert Rauschenberg (b. 1925), the American artist whose Dadaesque combines, collages, paintings, prints, and found works incorporated wit, vigor, and the man’s own powerful charisma;

 

Eartha Kitt (b. 1927), the American singer whose hypnotic, purring voice entranced millions, and whose confident sexuality and courage transformed modern celebrity and music;

 

Harvey Korman (b. 1927), the American comedic actor whose career-long association with Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, and Mel Brooks brought manic laughs to millions;

 

Bo Diddley (b. 1928), the American singer, songerwriter, guitarist, and Rock And Roll Hall of Famer whose rambunctious songs helped transform the blues into rock and roll, most famously with his syncopated, frenetic, and oft-stolen “Bo Diddley beat;”

 

Nappy Brown (b. 1929), the American singer whose emotional voice on such songs as “Night Time Is The Right Time” helped transform classic rhythm & blues music into what became soul music;

 

Charles Joffe (b. 1929), the American producer of nearly every Woody Allen film ever made, including Take The Money And Run, Bananas, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Hannah And Her Sisters;

 

Colin Murdoch (b. 1929), the New Zealander pharmacist and veterinarian who invented both the tranquilizer gun and the disposable hypodermic syringe;

 

Harold Pinter (b. 1930), the English playwright, actor, director, essayist, and poet whose haunting works capture the lurking horrors and miscues of modern life;

 

Bernie Brillstein (b. 1931), the American television and film producer who brought the world Hee Haw, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, and The Sopranos;

 

Majel Barrett (b. 1932), the American actress and producer famed for multiple key roles in various incarnations of Star Trek, most historically perhaps as Number One in the original pilot but most enduringly as the computer voice of the U.S.S. Enterprise herself;

 

Roy Sheider (b. 1932), the American actor whose taut, acidic performances enriched memorable roles in classic films including The French Connection, The Seven Ups, Jaws, Sorceror, and All That Jazz;

 

Levi Stubbs (b. 1932), the American singer and Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer whose unforgettable voice made hits of “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” for the Four Topps, and who provided the voice of Audrey II in the Frank Oz film version of Little Shop of Horrors;

 

Sydney Pollack (b. 1934), the American film director and actor who brought us Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Tootsie, and Out Of Africa;

 

Phillip Agee (b. 1935), the American-born intelligence officer who worked for the CIA and whose later dissident writings exposed other covert agents;

 

Yves Saint Laurent (b. 1936), the French fashion designer who reinvigorated high-end fashion and moved it to the masses with his “ready to wear” lines;

 

Suzanne Pleshette (b. 1937), the American actress whose dry wit enlivened films such as The Birds and Support Your Local Gunfighter, but who is likely best remembered for her long run on The Bob Newhart Show;

 

Delaney Bramlett (b. 1939), the American musician who wrote “Let It Rain” for Eric Clapton and taught George Harrison how to play slide guitar;

 

George Carlin (b. 1937), the American comedian and actor whose often provocative standup routine paved the way for most comedians who followed him, and whose “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television” became a classic piece of satire and a centerpiece to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision;

 

Don LaFontaine (b. 1940), the American voice-over artist whose voice powered more than 5,000 movie trailers, and whose trademark phrase “In a world…” was so successful that it became a much-parodied cliché;

 

Norman Whitfield (b. 1940), the American songwriter and producer whose Motown hits “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” and “War” provided an unforgettable soundtrack to American life and culture;

 

Michael Crichton (b. 1942), the American physician and author of The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and many other popular science fiction works, and who also came to create the television show ER;

 

Dith Pran (b. 1942), the Cambodian (later American) photojournalist whose harrowing experience during the Cambodian genocide was portrayed in The Killing Fields, and who later campaigned for documentation and remembrance of the tragedy;

 

Isaac Hayes (b. 1942), the American musician, songwriter, actor, and humanitarian whose Grammy and Oscar-winning career included writing “Soul Man” for Sam & Dave, composing the score to Shaft; and playing Chef on South Park;

 

Bobby Fischer (b. 1943), the American (later Icelandic) chess grandmaster and world champion noted for sometimes odd behavior but best remembered for his stunning Cold War-era defeat of Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky;

 

Richard Wright (b. 1943), the English keyboardist, songwriter, and Rock And Roll Hall of Famer whose recordings and concerts with Pink Floyd thrilled millions and profoundly expanded the boundaries of what is possible and what is expected in popular music and performance;

 

Stan Winston (b. 1946),  the American visual effects and make-up wizard who brought life and death to films such as The Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Edward Scissorhands, Jurassic Park, A.I. and Ironman;

 

Danny Federici (b. 1950), the American musician who played organ, glockenspiel, and accordion for Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band for more than thirty years;

 

Tim Russert (b. 1950), the American journalist and longtime host of Meet The Press who became a reporter’s reporter and who popularized the concept of “red states and blue states;”

 

Bernie Mac (b. 1957), the American comedian and actor whose career included decades of stand-up work, television’s The Bernie Mac Show, and films such as Get On The Bus, Pride, and Ocean’s Eleven;

 

David Foster Wallace (b. 1962), the American professor and author of Infinite Jest, whose brief career and widely-hailed works are destined to inspire an entire generation of readers and writers; and

 

Heath Ledger (b. 1979), the Australian actor of immense promise who gave rich, original, and sometimes heartbreaking performances in films such as Monster’s Ball, I’m Not There, and Brokeback Mountain.