Dr. Renato Dulbecco (1914 - 2012)

Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro (Southern Italy) to a Calabrese mother and a Ligurian father. He graduated from high school at 16, then moved to the University of Turin. Despite a strong interest for mathematics and physics, he decided to study medicine. At only 22, he graduated in morbid anatomy and pathology under the supervision […]

Anthony Shadid (1968 - 2012)

From 2003 to 2009 Shadid was a staff writer for The Washington Post where he was an Islamic affairs correspondent based in the Middle East. Before The Washington Post, Shadid worked as Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press based in Cairo and as news editor of the AP bureau in Los Angeles. He spent […]

Gary Carter (1954 - 2012)

Carter was born in Culver City, California in 1954 to Jim Carter, an aircraft worker, and his wife, Inge. Gary was athletic at a young age, winning (along with four other boys) the 7-year old category of the first national Punt, Pass, and Kick skills competition in 1961. When Gary was 12, his mother died […]

Dory Previn (1925 - 2012)

Previn was born in Rahway, New Jersey, the eldest daughter in a strict Catholic family of Irish origin. She had a troubled relationship with her father, especially during childhood. He had served in the First World War and been gassed, and experienced periods of depression and violent mood swings. He tended to alternately embrace and […]

Whitney Houston (1963 - 2012)

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, Guinness World Records cited her as the most awarded female act of all time. Houston was one of the world’s best-selling music artists, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. She released six […]

Antoni Tàpies (1923 - 2012)

The son of Josep Tàpies i Mestre and Maria Puig i Guerra, Antoni Tàpies Puig was born in Barcelona on December 13, 1923. His father was a lawyer and Catalan nationalist who served briefly with the Republican government. At 17, Tàpies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis. He spent two years as a […]

Florence Green (1901 - 2012)

Florence Green was born at Edmonton, London to Frederick and Sarah (nėe Neal) Patterson. She joined the Women’s Royal Air Force in September 1918 at the age of 17, where she served as an officers’ mess steward. She worked in the officers’ mess at RAF Marham and was also based at Narborough airfield.  She moved […]

Ben Gazzara (1930 - 2012)

Ben Gazzara Gazzara was born in New York City, the son of Italian immigrants Angelina (née Cusumano) and Antonio Gazzarra, a laborer and carpenter. Both Gazzara’s parents were of Sicilian origin, Angelina from Castrofilippo and Antonio from Canicattì, both in the province of Agrigento. Gazzara grew up in New York’s Kips Bay neighborhood; he lived […]

Angelo Dundee (1921 - 2012)

Angelo Dundee Born in Philadelphia of Italian descent, Dundee went to New York and later to Miami where he learned many of the strategies of a boxer’s cornerman while acting as a “bucket man” to the great trainers of Stillman’s Gym. There, his mentors included Charlie Goldman, Ray Arcel and Chickie Ferrera. Later, his brother […]

Mike Kelley (1954 - 2012)

Kelley was born in Wayne, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, to a working class Roman Catholic family in October 1954. His father was in charge of maintenance for a public school system; his mother was a cook in the executive dining room at Ford Motor Company. In his early years he was involved with the […]

Don Cornelius (1936 - 2012)

Don Cornelius Cornelius was born on Chicago’s South Side on September 27, 1936, and raised in the Bronzeville neighborhood. Following his graduation from DuSable High School in 1954, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served 18 months in Korea. He worked at various jobs following his stint in the military, including selling tires, […]

Wisława Szymborska (1923 - 2012)

Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in Prowent, Poland (now part of Kórnik, Poland), the daughter of Wincenty and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborski. Her father was at that time the steward of Count Władysław Zamoyski, a Polish patriot and charitable patron. After the death of Count Zamoyski in 1924, her family moved to […]

Camilla Williams (1919 - 2012)

On October 18, 1919, Camilla Ella Williams was born in Danville, Virginia, to Fannie Carey Williams and Cornelius Booker Williams, who worked as a chauffeur. She was the youngest of four children (Mary, Helen, and Cornelius).  “My grandparents and parents were self-taught musicians; all of them sang, and there was always music in our home.” […]

Dorothea Tanning (1910 - 2012)

Dorothea Tanning was born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois. After attending Knox College for two years (1928–30), she moved to Chicago in 1930 and then to New York in 1935. There she supported herself as a commercial artist while pursuing her own painting, and discovered Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art’s seminal 1936 exhibition, […]

James Farentino (1938 - 2012)

James Farentino Born in Brooklyn, New York, Farentino attended local schools followed later by studying drama and acting in Catholic school.  In the 1950s/60s, he went on to stage and a few TV roles. Among his many television appearances, he guest-starred in 1964 with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., in the episode “Super-Star” of the CBS drama […]

Eiko Ishioka (1938 - 2012)

Ishioka was born in Tokyo to a commercial graphic designer father and a housewife mother. Although her father encouraged her interest in art as a child, he discouraged her ambition to follow him into the business. She graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.  Eiko began her career with the advertising […]

Etta James (1938 - 2012)

Etta James Jamesetta Hawkins was born on January 25, 1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was only 14 at the time. Her father has never been identified. James speculated that he was the pool player Rudolf “Minnesota Fats” Wanderone, and met him briefly in 1987. Due to her mother’s frequent absences from […]

Johnny Otis (1921 - 2012)

Johnny Otis Otis was born to Greek immigrants Alexander J. Veliotes, a Mare Island longshoreman and grocery store owner, and his wife, the former Irene Kiskakes, a painter. He had a younger sister, Dorothy, and a younger brother, Nicholas A. Veliotes, former U.S. Ambassador to both Jordan (1978–1981) and Egypt (1984–1986)). He grew up in […]

Eve Arnold (1912 - 2012)

Eve Arnold was born Eve Cohen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the middle of nine children born to immigrant Russian-Jewish parents, William Cohen (born Velvel Sklarski), a rabbi, and his wife, Bessie (Bosya Laschiner). Her interest in photography began in 1946 while working in a New York City photo-finishing plant. Over six weeks in 1948, she learned […]

Joanne Borgella (1982 - 2014)

Joanne Borgella Joanne Borgella (May 29, 1982 – October 18, 2014) was an American singer and model. She was signed to Wilhelmina Models in New York City, Miami and LA. She was the first winner of Mo’Nique’s Fat Chance pageant as “Miss F.A.T.” in 2005 and a top 24 contestant on the seventh season of […]

Oscar de la Renta (1932 - 2014)

Oscar de la Renta Born on July 22, 1932, Oscar de la Renta was raised alongside six sisters in a middle-class household in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At the age of 18, he left the Caribbean island to study painting at the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. While in Spain, he dreamed of becoming […]

Tyson Stevens (1985 - 2014)

Tyson Stevens Tyson Stevens, former lead singer for Gilbert-based screamo group Scary Kids Scaring Kids has died. He was 29. A report posted Tuesday, Oct. 21, on Alternative Press’ website says: “A source who wishes to remain anonymous has told us that Stevens was found dead this morning by his girlfriend in Tucson, Arizona.” The news was […]

Marcia Strassman (1948 - 2014)

Marcia Strassman (April 28, 1948 – October 24, 2014) was an American actress and singer, best known for her roles as Julie Kotter in Welcome Back, Kotter and as Diane Szalinski in the 1989 feature film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; its sequel Honey, I Blew Up the Kid; and the 3-D film spin-off Honey, […]

Josef Škvorecký (1924 - 2012)

Born the son of a bank clerk in Náchod, Czechoslovakia, Škvorecký graduated in 1943 from the Reálné gymnasium in his native Náchod. For two years during the Second World War he was a slave labourer in a German aircraft factory.  After the war, he began to study at the Faculty of Medicine of Charles University […]

Robert L. Carter (1917 - 2012)

Carter was born on March 11, 1917, in Caryville, Florida. While an infant, his mother moved north to Newark, New Jersey and later East Orange, where he was raised and attended Barringer High School in Newark and then graduated at age 16 from East Orange High School after having skipped two grades. He earned his […]

Oscar Taveras (1992 - 2014)

Oscar Taveras Oscar Francisco Taveras (June 19, 1992 – October 26, 2014) was a Dominican-Canadian professional baseball outfielder who played one season for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). The Cardinals signed him at age 16 in 2008 as an undrafted free agent and he made his MLB debut in 2014. Over […]

Caleb Moore (1987 - 2013)

Caleb Moore was born in 1987 in Ft. Worth, Texas. His parents are Wade and Michele Moore.  Moore began his career as an ATV racer. During an event in Minnesota, B. C. Vaught spotted Moore and signed him up to star in some action sports movies. Vaught eventually became Moore’s agent. When Moore decided to […]

Stanley Karnow (1925 - 2013)

After serving with the United States Army Air Forces in the China Burma India Theater during World War II, he graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in 1947; in 1947 and 1948 he attended the Sorbonne, and from 1948 to 1949 the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. He then began his career in journalism […]

Andree Putman (1925 - 2013)

Andrée Christine Aynard was born into a wealthy family of bankers and notables from Lyon. Her paternal grandfather, Edouard Aynard, founded the Maynard & Sons Bank; her paternal grandmother, Rose de Montgolfier, was a descendant of the hot-air balloon inventors’ family. Her father was a graduate from the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure who spoke seven […]

Earl Weaver (1930 - 2013)

Earl Weaver He was the son of Earl Milton Weaver, a dry cleaner who cleaned the uniforms of the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, and Ethel Genieve Wakefield. After playing for Beaumont High School in his hometown, St. Louis, Missouri, the 17-year-old Weaver was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1948 as a second […]