In Memoriam
Total 1571 Posts
James Whitmore was 87. He was the many-faceted character actor who delivered strong performances in movies, television and especially the theater with his popular one-man shows about Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt. I knew him best as inmate Brooks Hatlen in The Shawshank Redemption.
Lux Interior was 62. He was lead singer of influential garage-punk act the Cramps.
Russ Germain was 62. He was the former host of flagship CBC radio news programs World Report and The World at Six.
John Updike was 76. He was the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire.
Ricardo Montalban was 88. He was the Mexican-born actor who became a star in splashy MGM musicals and later as the wish-fulfilling Mr. Roarke in TV's "Fantasy Island." I remember him well as Vincent Ludwig in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!.
Patrick McGoohan was 80. He was an Emmy Award-winning actor who starred as a British spy in the 1960s TV series "Secret Agent" and "The Prisoner" and was known for playing various villainous roles in films and on television.
Donald Westlake was 75. He was the prolific mystery writer who wrote more than 100 books, using his own name and several pseudonyms, including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West.
Eartha Kitt was 81. She was the sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality. It's fitting she passed on a day many of us were playing her best known tune, "Santa Baby."
Robert Mulligan was 83. He was known best for directing the1962 movie "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Dock Ellis was 63. He infamously claimed he pitched a no-hitter for Pittsburgh under the influence of LSD and later fiercely spoke out against drug and alcohol addiction.
Mark Felt was 95. He was the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as "Deep Throat" 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president.
Joe Krol was 89. He won six Grey Cups, five with the Toronto Argonauts, as a Canadian Football League quarterback, running back, and placekicker/punter from 1942-1953 and 1955.
Bettie Page was 85. She was the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
Odetta Holmes was 77. She was the deep-voiced folk singer whose ballads and songs became for many a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement. She was also a major influence on Bob Dylan.
Ted Rogers was 75. He was the founder and CEO of Rogers Communications, which owns the Toronto Blue Jays, five Citytv television stations across the country, as well as the Rogers cable TV, wireless, radio and magazine businesses, including Maclean's and Chatelaine.
Hubert "Pit" Martin was 64. He played in the NHL from 1961-79, posting 324 goals and 485 assists for 809 points in 1,101 games with the Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks and Vancouver Canucks.
Kenny MacLean was in his early 50s. He rose to fame as bassist in the 1980s Toronto-based new wave band Platinum Blonde.
Mitch Mitchell was 61. He was the drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s and the group's last surviving member.
Miriam Makeba was 76. She was the South African singer who wooed the world with her sultry voice but was banned from her own country for more than 30 years under apartheid.
Michael Crichton was 66. He was the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science fantasies as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain."
Jacques Piccard was 86. He was the Swiss deep sea explorer and inventor who holds the record for travelling to the deepest point underwater.
Studs Terkel was 96. He was the ageless master of listening and speaking, a broadcaster, activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose best-selling oral histories celebrated the common people he liked to call the "non-celebrated."
Conrad "S.D. Jones" Efraim was 63. He was a former professional wrestler best known as Special Delivery Jones from his time in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). I had an S.D. Jones action figure.
Charles Dubin was 87. He was a former Ontario chief justice who dominated courtrooms for more than half a century. If you're like me, you remember Charles Dubin best as the man who chaired the Dubin Inquiry after sprinter Ben Johnson lost his gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Tony Hillerman was 83. He was author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes - Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.
