The 1980s: The Arts: Deaths

THE 1980s: THE ARTS: DEATHS

Ansel Adams, 82, photographer known for his sharply detailed landscapes, which helped to establish photography as an art form, 22 April 1984.

Kurt Adler, 82, conductor and opera director, 9 February 1988.

Alvin Ailey, 58, modern-dance choreographer, founder, and director of an integrated dance company, 1 December 1989.

Jack Albertson, 71, stage, movie, and television actor, who won a Tony and an Oscar for his roles in the stage (1964) and movie (1968) versions of The Subject Was Roses, 25 November 1981.

Ivan Albright, 86, painter, 18 November 1983.

Robert Aldrich, 65, director of movie melodramas such as Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), and The Dirty Dozen (1967), 5 December 1983.

Nelson Algren, 72, author of novels of the urban underground—including The Man With the Golden Arm (1949) and Walk on the Wild Side (1956), 9 May 1981.

Harold Arlen, 81, composer of music for popular songs such as "Get Happy," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "It's Only a Paper Moon," and "Stormy Weather," 23 April 1986.

Hal Ashby, 59, director whose movies include Harold and Maude (1972), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978), and Being There (1979), 27 December 1988.

Fred Astaire, 88, legendary dancer, actor, singer, and choreographer who personified onscreen elegance in the 1930s in movies such as The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935), 22 June 1987.

Mary Astor, 81, movie actress well-known for her role in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and winner of an Oscar for best supporting actress for The Great Lie (1941), 25 September 1987.

Brooks Atkinson, 89, theater critic for The New York Times (1925-1942, 1946-1960), who reviewed more than three thousand opening-night performances, and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his series of reports on life in the Soviet Union (1947), 13 January 1984.

Chet Baker, 58, jazz trumpeter and vocalist, 14 May 1988.

George Balanchine, 79, Russian-born cofounder of the New York City Ballet (1934) and one of the most influential choreographers of the twentieth century, 30 April 1983.

James Baldwin, 63, African American novelist, playwright, and essayist who influenced the course of the American civil rights movement with works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), The Amen Corner (1955), Notes of a Native Son (1955), and Another Country (1962), 1 December 1987.

Lucille Ball, 77, legendary comedienne, star of / Love Lucy (1951-1961), one of the most popular American television shows of all time, 26 April 1989.

Samuel Barber, 70, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, 23 January 1981.

Alfred Barr, 79, art historian who served as the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 15 August 1981.

Donald Barthelme, 58, novelist and short-story writer, 23 July 1989.

Count Basie, 77, bandleader who revolutionized jazz with his rhythmic keyboard style, 26 April 1984.

Anne Baxter, 62, Oscar-winning screen actress, whose movie credits include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Razor's Edge (1946), All About Eve (1950), and The Ten Commandments (1956), 12 December 1985.

John Belushi, 32, comedian who starred on the television program Saturday Night Live and in movies such as National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980), from an overdose of cocaine and heroin, 5 March 1982.

Nathaniel Benchley, 66, novelist and author of children's books, 14 December 1981.

Michael Bennett, 44, Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning director, dancer, and choreographer best known for his creation of A Chorus Line (1975), 2 July 1987.

Robert Russell Bennett, 87, composer, arranger, and conductor, who wrote the scores for some three hundred movies and Broadway shows, 11 December 1980.

Ingrid Bergman, 67, Oscar-winning movie actress best known for her roles in Casablanca (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), and Anastasia (1956), 29 August 1982.

Irving Berlin, 101, prolific composer of popular songs, including "God Bless America," "Cheek to Cheek," "Always," and "Alexander's Ragtime Band"; movie scores, including Top Hat (1935) and Holiday Inn (1942; for which he wrote the songs "Easter Parade" and "White Christmas"); and stage musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun (1936) and Call Me Madam (1950), 22 September 1989.

Valerie Bettis, 62, dancer and choreographer, 26 September 1982.

Eubie Blake, 100, popular songwriter and pianist, a pioneer of ragtime music, 12 February 1983.

Mel Blanc, 81, who supplied the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and Woody Woodpecker in Warner Bros, cartoons, 10 July 1989.

Ray Bolger, 83, dancer and actor best known as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939), 15 January 1987.

Ilya Bolotowsky, 74, a Soviet-born painter and sculptor, who founded the American Abstract Artists group, 21 November 1981.

Richard Brautigan, 49, novelist known for his Trout Fishing in America (1967), 25 October 1984.

Bricktop, 89, American expatriate nightclub singer and hostess whose Paris club was a gathering place for café society in the 1920s and 1930s, 31 January 1984.

Louise Brooks, 78, silent movie actress known for her portrayal of Lulu in Pandoras Box (1928), 8 August 1985.

Clarence Brown, 97, director whose movies include Anna Christie (1930) and Anna Karenina (1935), 17 August 1987.

Shirley Brown, 88, poet and critic active in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, 13 January 1989.

Yul Brynner, 65, Tony- and Oscar-winning actor best known for playing the king of Siam in stage (1951, 1985) and movie (1956) versions of The King and I, 10 October 1985.

Abe Burrows, 74, Pulitzer Prize-winning director, producer, comedian, and writer, 17 May 1985.

Richard Burton, 58, Welsh-born stage and movie actor who starred in the Broadway musical Camelot (1960) and whose movies include Becket (1963) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Elizabeth Taylor's fifth and sixth husband, 5 August 1984.

James Cagney, 81, Oscar-winning movie actor and dancer known for his cocky personality and energy in movies such as The Public Enemy (1931), Footlight Parade (1933), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and White Heat (1949), 30 March 1986.

Erskine Caldwell, 83, novelist, author of Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), 11 April 1987.

Truman Capote, 59, writer best-known for the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and for his pioneering "nonfiction novel," In Cold Blood (1966), 26 August 1984.

Hoagy Carmichael, 82, composer of fifty hit songs, including "Georgia on My Mind" and "Stardust," 27 December 1981.

Karen Carpenter, 32, singer in the popular 1970s pop duo The Carpenters, 2 February 1983.

John Carradine, 82, character actor in movies such as Stagecoach (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1941), 27 November 1988.

Raymond Carver, 50, poet and short-story writer, 2 August 1988.

Vera Caspary, 83, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter whose movie credits include Laura (1944), 6 June 1987.

John Cassavetes, 59, actor, director, and screenwriter who wrote and directed Faces (1968), Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Gloria (1980), and Love Streams (1983), 3 February 1989.

Gower Champion, 59, choreographer, dancer, and director who died hours before the premiere of the Broadway revival of 42nd Street, which he was directing, 25 August 1980.

Mary Chase, 74, playwright who won a Pulitzer Prize for Harvey (1944), 23 October 1981.

Paddy Chayefsky, 58, award-winning playwright and screenwriter who excelled in social commentary and satire; his plays include Middle of the Night (1956) and The Tenth Man (1959), and his screen credits include Marty (1955), The Hospital (1971), and Network (1976), 1 August 1981.

John Cheever, 70, Pulitzer Prize-winning short-story writer and novelist, author of The Whapshot Chronicle (1957) and Bullet Park (1969), 18 June 1982.

Ina Claire, 92, stage comedienne who specialized in sophisticated wit, 21 February 1985.

Harold Clurman, 78, director, critic, and founder of the Group Theater, which introduced the Stanislavsky "method" to the American stage, 9 September 1980.

James Coco, 57, comic actor known for roles in Neil Simon and Terence McNally comedies, 25 February 1987.

Marc Connelly, 90, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, author, producer, and director who collaborated with George Kaufman on popular comedies of the 1920s, 21 December 1980.

Jackie Coogan, 69, child star of silent movies such as The Kid (1921), 1 March 1984.

Buster Crabbe, 75, former athlete who played Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon in 1930s movie serials, 23 April 1983.

Broderick Crawford, 74, Oscar-winning actor remembered for his roles in All the Kings Men (1949) and Born Yesterday (1950), 26 April 1986.

Cheryl Crawford, 84, theatrical producer and cofounder of The Actors' Studio, 7 October 1986.

Scatman Crothers, 76, character actor in movies such as The Shining (1980), 22 November 1986.

Bosley Crowther, 75, movie critic for The New York Times (1940-1967), 7 March 1981.

George Cukor, 83, director known for his skill with actors; his movies include Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Camille (1937), Holiday (1938), The Women (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Gaslight (1944), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), and My Fair Lady (1964), 24 January 1983.

Frederic Dannay, 76, co-author of Ellery Queen detective novels, 3 September 1982.

Bette Davis, 81, movie actress known for the spirited, independent characters she played in movies such as Of Human Bondage (1934), Jezebel (1938), Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Now Voyager (1942), All About Eve (1950), and What ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), 6 October 1989.

I. A. L. Diamond, 67, screenwriter known for his collaborations with Billy Wilder on movies such as Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), 21 April 1988.

Howard Dietz, 86, who collaborated with Arthur Schwartz on Broadway musicals such as Stars in Your Eyes (1939), Park Avenue (1946), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), and That's Entertainment (1972), 30 July 1983.

Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead), 42, drag star of John Waters movies such as Polyester (1981) and Hair spray (1988), 7 March 1988.

Melvyn Douglas, 80, actor who won Oscars for his roles in the movies Hud (1963) and Being There (1979) and a Tony for his acting in the 1960 Broadway production of The Best Man (1960), 4 August 1981.

Morton Downey, 82, singer and composer of the 1930s, 25 October 1985.

Jimmy Durante, 86, vaudeville comedian and radio, television, and nightclub performer remembered for his outsized nose and raspy voice, 29 January 1980.

Florence Eldridge, 86, stage and movie actress, 1 August 1988.

Roy Eldridge, 78, jazz trumpeter, bandleader, conductor, and singer, 26 February 1989.

Faye Emerson, 65, movie and television actress, 9 March 1983.

Walter Farley, 73, author of The Black Stallion (1941) and other popular horse novels, 17 October 1989.

Henry Fonda, 77, actor who played men of integrity in more than one hundred stage and screen roles, including Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Mister Roberts (1955), 12 Angry Men (1957), and On Golden Pond (1981), 12 August 1982.

Lynn Fontanne, 85, who with Alfred Lunt made up one of the legendary husband-wife acting teams in theater history, 30 July 1983.

Bob Fosse, 60, dancer, choreographer, and director of Broadway shows such as How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1962), Sweet Charity (1966), and Pippin (1972) and movies such as Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1974), and All That Jazz (1979), 23 September 1987.

Carol Fox, 55, cofounder and manager of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, 21 July 1981.

Ketti Frings, 61, screenwriter and playwright, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for his stage adaptation of Look Homeward Angel (1957), 11 February 1981.

Red Garland, 60, jazz pianist of the 1950s, accompanist to Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, 23 April 1984.

Marvin Gaye, singer, shot and killed by his father, 1 April 1984.

Ira Gershwin, 86, Pulitzer Prize—winning lyricist, who wrote dozens of classic songs with his brother George, including "The Man I Love," "Strike Up the Band," and "I Got Rhythm," 17 August 1983.

Jackie Gleason, 71, legendary television actor-comedian who made occasional movies, including The Hustler (1961), 24 June 87.

Benny Goodman, 87, orchestra leader and clarinetist, legendary "King of Swing" in the big band era of the 1930s and 1940s, 13 June 1986.

Frances Goodrich, 92, screenwriter and playwright, who collaborated with her husband, Albert Hackett, on movies such as The Thin Man (1934) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Broadway plays, including the stage version of The Diary of Anne Franks for which they won a Tony Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, 29 January 1984.

Ruth Gordon, 88, Oscar-winning stage and screen actress, who played character roles in movies such as Rosemarys Baby (1968) and Harold and Maude (1971), and screenwriter, who worked with her husband, Garson Kanin, on scripts for movies such as A Double Life (1947) and Adam's Rib (1949), 28 August 1985.

Glen Gould, 50, eclectic pianist and composer, 4 October 1982.

Sheilah Graham, 80, Hollywood gossip columnist for three decades, well known for her memoirs of her love affair with novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, 17 November 1980.

Cary Grant, 82, wry, witty, and debonair movie actor who specialized in comic and romantic roles in movies such as Topper (1937), The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963), 29 November 1986.

Philip Guston, 66, painter who mixed abstract expressionist, pop art, and representational styles, 7 June 1980.

Bill Haley, 55, singer with The Comets whose early 1950s hits "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake Rattle and Roll" helped to popularize rock 'n' roll, 11 May 1981.

Margaret Hamilton, 82, character actress best known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939), 16 May 1985.

John Henry Hammond, 76, record producer, music critic, and jazz and blues impresario, known for discovering young talent, including Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and Bruce Springsteen, 10 July 1987.

Nancy Hanks, 57, head of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Council for the Arts during the 1970s, 7 January 1983.

Howard Hanson, 84, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and conductor, 26 February 1981.

Sterling Hayden, 70, movie actor whose screen credits include The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), 23 May 1986.

Stanley Hayter, 86, graphic artist, 4 May 1988.

Rita Hayworth, 68, love goddess of 1940s movies such as Gilda (1946) and The Lady from Shanghai (1948), 14 May 1987.

Edith Head, 82, Hollywood costume designer who won a record eight Oscars for her wardrobe designs, 24 October 1981.

Jascha Heifetz, 86, virtuoso violinist, 10 December 1987.

Robert A. Heinlein, 80, science-fiction writer best known for his novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), 8 May 1988.

Woody Herman, 74, composer, bandleader, and clarinetist, 29 October 1987.

Earl Hines, 77, jazz pianist who played with Louis Armstrong and helped to influence bebop style, 22 April 1983.

Joseph Hirschhorn, 82, founder and benefactor of the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., owner of one of the world's largest private art collections, 31 August 1981.

Alfred Hitchcock, 80, movie director known as the "Master of Suspense," notable for movies such as Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window. (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), and Mamie (1964), 29 April 1980.

Laura Z. Hobson, 85, author of novels such as Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and Consenting Adult (1975), 28 February 1986.

William Holden, 63, Oscar-winning movie actor whose screen credits include Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Network (1976), 12 November 1981.

Vladimir Horowitz, 86, Russian-born pianist, 5 November 1989.

John Houseman, 86, director, writer, and actor who won an Oscar for his role in The Paper Chase (1973), 31 October 1988.

Rock Hudson, 59, actor in movies such as Giant (1956) and Pillow Talk (1959), the first celebrity to die of an AIDS-related illness, 2 October 1985.

Alberta Hunter, 89, blues singer and songwriter, 17 October 1984.

John Huston, 81, director of classic movies such as Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), and Prizzis Honor (1985), 28 August 1987.

Harry James, 67, bandleader who won fame as a trumpet player in Benny Goodman's orchestra and later employed Frank Sinatra and Buddy Rich, 5 July 1983.

Sidney Janis, 93, leading New York art dealer and promoter of Abstract Expressionism, 23 November 1989.

George Jessel, 83, showman, comedian, and inventor of celebrity "roasts," 24 May 1981.

Robert Joffrey, 57, choreographer, dancer, and founder of the Joffrey Ballet, 25 March 1988.

Carolyn Jones, 50, movie and television actress, 3 August 1983.

Danny Kaye, 74, comic actor who appeared in movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), White Christmas (1954), and The Double (1961), 3 March 1987.

Nora Kaye, 67, ballet star of the 1940s and 1950s, 30 April 1987.

Grace Kelly, 53, princess of Monaco and former actress whose screen credits include High Noon (1952), The Country Girl (1954), Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955), 14 September 1982.

Iva Kitchell, 75, dancer well known for comic and satiric routines, 19 November 1983.

Alfred A. Knopf, 91, book publisher whose firm published works by sixteen Nobel laureates and twenty-six Pulitzer Prize winners, 11 August 1984.

Andre Kostelanetz, 78, conductor of the New York Philharmonic (1952-1979), 13 January 1980.

Lee Krasner, 75, Abstract Expressionist painter and widow of artist Jackson Pollock, 19 June 1984.

Kay Kyser, 79, bandleader, 23 July 1985.

Louis L'Amour, 80, author of popular western novels, 10 June 1988.

Peter Lawford, 61, movie actor and in-law to the Kennedy family, 24 December 1984.

John Lennon, 40, singer and songwriter, member of The Beatles and later a solo performer, 8 December 1980.

Alan Jay Lerner, 67, lyricist and librettist known for his collaborations with Frederick Loewe on the Broadway musicals Brigadoon (1947), Paint Your Wagon (1951), My Fair Lady (1956), Gigi (1958), and Camelot (1960), 14 June 1986.

Joseph Levine, 81, producer and distributor of foreign films, 31 July 1987.

Liberace, 69, flamboyant pianist and entertainer, 4 February 1987.

Frederick Loewe, 83, pianist and composer known for the musicals he wrote with Alan Jay Lerner, 14 February 1988.

Joshua Logan, 79, stage director, producer, and playwright, best known as co-author and director of the plays Mister Roberts (1948) and South Pacific (1949), 12 July 1988.

George London, 63, opera singer, 24 March 1985.

Anita Loos, 88, actress, novelist, and screenwriter, best-known for her novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), 18 August 1981.

Eugene Lorring, 68, Broadway and Hollywood dancer and choreographer, 30 August 1982.

Joseph Losey, 75, movie director blacklisted in Hollywood during the 1950s because of his alleged communist sympathies, 22 June 1984.

Clare Boo the Luce, 84, dramatist whose plays include The Women (1937) and Kiss the Boys Goodbye (1937), 9 October 1987.

Charles Ludlam, 44, playwright, director, and cofounder of the Ridiculous Theater Company, 28 May 1987.

John D. MacDonald, 70, novelist and creator of detective Travis McGee, 28 December 1986.

Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar), 67, author of hard-boiled detective fiction, who introduced detective Lew Archer in The Moving Target (1949), 11 July 1983.

Helen Maclnnes, 77, author of suspense fiction, 30 September 1985.

Archibald MacLeish, 89, poet who won Pulitzer Prizes for his long poem Conquistador (1932), his Collected Poems 1917-1952 (1952), and his verseplay J.B., 20 April 1982.

Bernard Malamud, 71, novelist and short-story writer whose novels include The Natural (1952) and The Fixer (1966), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, 18 March 1986.

Albert Maltz, 76, screenwriter, novelist, and playwright, one of the "Hollywood Ten" jailed in 1950 and blacklisted for alleged communist sympathies, 26 April 1985.

Rouben Mamoulian, 90, director of Broadway productions such as Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945) and movies such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and Blood and Sand (1941), 22 July 1988.

Robert Mapplethorpe, 42, photographer noted for his erotic and controversial subject matter, 9 March 1989.

Lee Marvin, 63, Oscar-winning movie actor whose screen credits include Cat Ballou (1965) and The Dirty Dozen (1967), 29 August 1987.

Raymond Massey, 86, stage and movie actor, 19 July 1983.

Mary McCarthy, 77, novelist and short-story writer best known for her novel The Group (1963), 25 October 1989.

Steve McQueen, SO, actor best known for his action-hero roles in movies such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Sand Pebbles (1966), and Bullitt (1969), 7 November 1980.

Ethel Merman, 75, singer and actress who helped to make hits of the stage musicals Anything Goes (1934), Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1966), and Gypsy (1959), 17 February 1984.

Ray Milland, 79, movie actor who won an Oscar for his role in The Lost Weekend (1945), 10 March 1986.

Henry Miller, 88, writer whose controversial novel Tropic of Cancer (1934) was banned in the United States until 1961, 7 June 1980.

Vincente Minnelli, 73, director of classic M-G-M musical movies such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), An American in Paris (1951), and Gigi (1958), 25 July 1986.

Howard Mitchell, 77, conductor, cellist, and music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, 22 June 1988.

Thelonious Monk, 64, jazz pianist and composer, one of the originators of bebop style, 17 February 1982.

Robert Montgomery, 77, actor whose movies include Night Must Fall (1937) and Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), 27 September 1981.

Alice Neel, 84, painter whose unconventional lifestyle earned her the tag "quintessential bohemian," 13 October 1984.

Pola Negri, 87, silent movie actress, 1 August 1987.

Rick Nelson, 45, pop singer and teen idol during the late 1950s, 31 December 1985.

Louise Nevelson, 87, exponent of environmental sculpture, 17 April 1988.

David Niven, 73, Oscar-winning actor best known for playing debonair bachelors in movies such as Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Separate Tables (1958), and The Pink Panther (1964), 29 July 1983.

Isamo Noguchi, 83, sculptor whose abstract style fused Eastern and Western traditions, 30 December 1988.

Lloyd Nolan, 83, movie actor whose credits include Peyton Place (1957) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1974), 27 September 1985.

Pat O'Brien, 83, actor known for portrayals of Irishmen in movies such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Fighting Father Dunne (1948), 15 October 1983.

Mary O'Hara, 95, screenwriter and author of popular horse novels, including My Friend Flicka (1941), 15 October 1980.

Georgia O'Keeffe, 98, painter well-known for her imagery of the American Southwest, 6 March 1986.

Roy Orbison, 52, falsetto-voiced rock 'n' roll singer, 6 December 1988.

Geraldine Page, 62, Oscar-winning stage and screen actress, best-known for her roles in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962), Summer and Smoke (1961), and The Trip to Bountiful (1985), 13 June 1987.

Sam Peckinpah, 59, director known for his balletic staging of violence in movies such as The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971), 28 December 1984.

Slim Pickens, 64, character actor who played comic roles in movies such as Dr. Strangelove (1964), Blazing Saddles (1974), and The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), 8 December 1983.

Walter Pidgeon, 86, actor usually cast as a man of integrity in movies such as Mrs. Miniver (1942), Executive Suite (1954), and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), 24 September 1984.

Miguel Pinero, 41, playwright and poet, winner of Obie and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Short Eyes (1974), 17 June 1988.

Katherine Anne Porter, 90, fiction writer whose books include the short-story collection Flowering Judas (1930) and the novel Ship of Fools (1962), 18 September 1980.

William Powell, 91, actor best known for playing witty, sophisticated characters such as Nick Charles in The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936), Another Thin Man (1939), Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), and Song of the Thin Man (1947), 5 March 1984.

Otto Preminger, 79, Austrian-born producer and director whose movies include Laura (1944), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and Anatomy of a Murder (1959), 23 April 1986.

Robert Preston, 68, stage actor who won a Tony for his starring role in the Broadway musical The Music Man (1957) and also acted in movies, including Victor/Victoria (1982), 21 March 1987.

William Primrose, 77, musician often hailed as best violinist of the 1930s and 1940s, 1 May 1982.

Ayn Rand, 77, novelist whose books, including The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), promote the theory of "objectivism," a kind of rationalized selfishness and individualism, 6 March 1982.

Donna Reed, 64, Oscar-winning movie and television actress whose movies include It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and From Here to Eternity (1953), 14 January 1986.

Kenneth Rexroth, 76, poet, playwright, and novelist who associated with and helped to publicize the Beat Generation of the 1950s, 6 June 1982.

Buddy Rich, 69, drummer and orchestra leader who played with Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Harry James during the swing era, 2 April 1987.

George Rose, 68, actor who won a Tony for his performance of Alfred P. Doolittle in the 1975 Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, 5 May 1988.

Arthur Rubinstein, 95, one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, 20 December 1982.

Waldo Salt, 72, screenwriter who won Oscars for Mid-night Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978), 7 March 1987.

Helen Hooven Santmyer, 90, writer who became well known in her eighties with the novel "…And Ladies of the Club" (19S4), 21 February 1986.

William Saroyan, 74, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright who refused the Pulitzer Prize he won for his play The Time of Your Life (1939), 18 May 1981.

Dore Schary, 74, movie producer and head of the M-G-M movie studio after the death of Louis B. Mayer, 7 July 1980.

Alan Schneider, 66, Russian-born stage director known for his productions of plays by Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, and Bertolt Brecht, 3 May 1984.

Romy Schneider, 43, Austrian-born movie actress whose screen credits include What's New Pussycat? (1965) and Swimming Pool (1970), 29 May 1982.

Arthur Schwartz, 83, composer who collaborated with Howard Dietz on Broadway musicals such as Stars in Your Eyes (1939), Park Avenue (1946), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), and That's Entertainment (1972), 4 September 1984.

Hazel Scott, 61, jazz pianist and singer, 2 October 1981.

Randolph Scott, 89, movie actor best known for his roles in westerns such as Badmans Territory (1946) and Hangman's Knot (1952), 2 March 1987.

Roger Sessions, 88, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, 16 March 1985.

Irwin Shaw, 71, novelist/playwright whose works include the World War I play Bury the Dead (1938) and the World War II novel The Young Lions (1948), 16 May 1984.

Norma Shearer, 82, actress who was known as the "queen of M-G-M" during the 1930s and played regal, sophisticated women in movies such as Private Lives (1931), Marie Antoinette (1938), and The Women (1939), 12 June 1983.

Max Shulman, 69, comic writer best known for novels such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1953), on which he based a screenplay (1953) and a television series (1959-1963), and Rally Round the Flag, Boys (1957), also the basis for a movie (1958); and the play The Tender Trap (1954), 28 August 1988.

Phil Silvers, 73, Tony-winning comic actor of stage and television, 1 November 1985.

Douglas Sirk, 86, director of movie melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), Written on the Wind (1956), and Imitation of Life (1959), 14 January 1987.

Walter Slezak, 80, stage actor and singer who won a Tony for his portrayal of Panisse in Fanny (1954), 22 April 1983.

Kate Smith, 77, robust singer best known for her rendition of "God Bless America," 17 June 1986.

Robert Stevenson, 81, director of Walt Disney movies such as The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), Mary Poppins (1964), The Love Bug (1968), and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), 30 April 1986.

Donald Ogden Stewart, 85, author of humorous fiction, such as A Parody Outline of History (1921) and Mr. and Mrs. Haddock Abroad (1924), and of screenplays, including The Philadelphia Story (1940), for which he won an Academy Award; he was blacklisted in Hollywood during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s, 2 August 1980.

Clyfford Still, 75, abstract painter who five months earlier was the subject of the largest one-man exhibit of a living artist's work ever held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, 23 June 1980.

Irving Stone, 86, author of biographical novels such as Lust for Life (1934), about Vincent van Gogh, and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), about Michelangelo, 26 August 1989.

Lee Strasberg, 80, a founder of the Group Theater and teacher at the well-known Actors' Studio in New York, and a proponent of Stanislavsky "method acting," 17 February 1982.

Gloria Swanson, 84, silent movie star best known for her comeback role as Norma Desmond in the "talkie "Sunset Blvd. (1950), 4 April 1983.

Blanche Sweet, 90, silent movie actress, 6 September 1986.

Virgil Thomson, 92, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and conductor, 30 September 1989.

Ernest Tubb, 70, country-music singer, songwriter, and musician who introduced the honky-tonk sound, 6 September 1984.

Rudy Vallee, 84, popular crooner of the 1930s, 3 July 1986.

Vera-Ellen, 55, dancer and actress whose screen credits include On the Town (1949) and White Christmas (1954), 30 August 1981.

King Vidor, 88, director whose movies include The Crowd (1928), The Champ (1931), The Fountainhead (1949), and Beyond the Forest (1949), 1 November 1982.

Alfred Wallenstein, 84, orchestra conductor and cellist, 8 February 1983.

Andy Warhol, 58, pop artist well known in the 1960s for silk screens of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor and for his party-filled New York studio The Factory, filmmaker whose movies include Trash and Fleshy and publisher of Interview magazine, 22 February 1987.

Harry Warren, 87, composer of more than three hundred popular songs, including "Lullaby of Broadway" and "42nd Street," 22 September 1981.

Robert Perm Warren, 84, poet and novelist who won a Pulitzer Prize for All the Kings Men (1946) and served as the first poet laureate of the United States, 15 September 1989.

Muddy Waters, 68, blues singer who influenced the Chicago blues style and the sound of rock and roll, 30 April 1983.

Orson Welles, 70, movie director and actor famous for a 1938 radio performance of his War of the Worlds and for Citizen Kane (1941), often called the "greatest movie ever made," 10 October 1985.

Oskar Werner, 61, German-born movie actor whose screen credits include Jules and Jim (1962) and Ship of Fools (1965), 23 October 1984.

Jessamyn West, 81, author best known for her novel Friendly Persuasion (1945), 23 February 1984.

Mae West, 87, buxom star of stage and screen known for her bawdy double entendres whose movies include She Done Him Wrong (1933), My Little Chickadee (1940), and Myra Breckinridge (1970), 22 November 1980.

E. B. White, 86, humorist and essayist, an early writer for The New Yorker and author of the children's classics Stuart Little (1945) and Charlotte's Web (1952), 1 October 1985.

Alec Wilder, 73, composer of popular songs, 24 December 1980.

Tennessee Williams, 73, playwright noted for the poetic dialogue in classic modern plays such as The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955; for which he won a Pulitzer Prize), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961), 25 February 1983.

Meredith Willson, 82, composer and lyricist who wrote the book music and lyrics for The Music Man (1957) and Here's Love (1963), and the music and lyrics for The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960), 15 June 1984.

Dennis Wilson, 39, drummer, keyboardist, and singer for the Beach Boys, 28 December 1983.

Natalie Wood, 43, screen actress for more than three decades whose movies include Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), West Side Story (1961), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), 29 November 1981.

William Wyler, 79, Oscar-winning director of movies such as Jezebel (1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), and Funny Girl (1968), 28 July 1981.

Efrem Zimbalist, 95, Russian-born violinist and composer, 22 February 1985.