Deaths (Obituaries)

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      Sid Eudy, Wrestler Known as ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘Sycho Sid,’ Dies at 63

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      The 6-foot-9 wrestling champion faced off against some of the industry’s biggest names, including Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan.Sid Eudy, a professional wrestler known as Sid Justice, Sid Vicious and Sycho Sid, who rose to fame in the 1990s and won multiple championships, died on Monday. He was 63.The cause was cancer, his son Gunnar Eudy wrote on Facebook.Mr. Eudy was one of his generation’s “most imposing and terrifying competitors,” the World Wrestling Entertainment said in a statement. Listed at 6-foot-9 and 317 pounds, he was one of the biggest of what are known in the industry as big men, who often play supporting roles because they don’t perform the high-flying moves that thrill fans.Mr. Eudy was a very big man who became a star in his own right. He headlined Wrestlemania twice and became champion of both the W.W.F., as it was then known, and its 1990s rival, the W.C.W., a rare trifecta.Mr. Eudy first entered the world of wrestling in 1989, when he signed with World Championship Wrestling, then an upstart circuit.Sid Eudy and Hulk Hogan at Madison Square Garden in 1992.Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix, via Getty ImagesIn 1991, Mr. Eudy debuted as Sid Justice in W.W.E., the organization said, as the special guest referee at SummerSlam 1991.Wrestlemania featured Mr. Eudy in its main event twice, in 1992 against Hulk Hogan, and again in 1997, against the Undertaker. Mr. Eudy was both a two-time W.W.F. champion and two-time W.C.W. champion. He was also a two-time U.S.W.A. champion.“One of the most brutal Superstars to ever terrorize W.W.E., the sadistic Sid brought an intensity that few could ever hope to contain,” the organization wrote. “Just ask the litany of ring legends who have incurred his wrath — a hit list that includes Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Bret ‘Hit Man’ Hart and many more.”Sidney Raymond Eudy was born in West Memphis, Ark., on Dec. 16, 1960. He is survived by his wife, Sabrina Estes Eudy, his sons Frank and Gunnar, as well as his grandchildren.In 2001, during a televised pay-per-view W.C.W. championship match, viewers watched Mr. Eudy injure his leg on live television after he jumped off the rope and accidentally landed badly, snapping his left leg at an unnatural angle.It effectively ended his career in major pro wrestling. Mr. Eudy himself acknowledged as much. “With my injury,” he said in a 2023 interview, “I feel I came up short with solidifying myself as one of the top 10, 15 money-drawers in the business.” More

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      Rudy Franchi, Who Put Movies at the Center of a Technicolor Life, Dies at 85

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      He brought French classics to New York, published a film magazine, worked as a Hollywood publicist and (as seen on “Antiques Roadshow”) thrived selling vintage posters and kitsch.Rudy Franchi, who during a kaleidoscopic life brought French films to New York City, indulged in trysts with Hollywood stars as a publicist, operated one of the country’s largest vintage movie poster businesses and appraised ephemera — most memorably, a lunch menu from the Titanic — on PBS’s “Antiques Roadshow,” died on Aug. 6 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 85.The cause of his death, at a nursing home, was lung cancer that had metastasized, his family said.Mr. Franchi’s life was highbrow, lowbrow and sometimes surreal.Along with movie posters, his store, the Nostalgia Factory, dealt in kitsch — Mickey Mouse watches, British cookie tins, StarKist “Charlie the Tuna” piggy banks. His career included a stint at a tabloid newspaper fabricating stories, like one that claimed that President John F. Kennedy was living secretly (though comatose) on an island after his assassination.“Rudy was definitely a character,” Grey Smith, a longtime vintage poster appraiser and dealer, said in an interview. “He was fascinating to be around because he had all of these crazy stories, and he could really talk about anything.”Mr. Franchi was not a gadfly, per se, but he was the sort of person whose name was familiar in the letters-to-the-editor departments of newspapers, especially The New York Times. It published six of the many missives he sent in on topics like the foreign exchange rates of American Express traveler’s checks, a critique of Playbill magazine and a brief history of neon signs.In a 2010 episode of “Antiques Roadshow,” Mr. Franchi appraised a grizzly bear skin that its owner said had once belonged to Bette Davis. The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tom Brown Jr., World-Renowned Survivalist, Is Dead at 74

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      For decades, he ran a school in the New Jersey wilderness that taught thousands of students how to survive and even thrive in the great outdoors.Tom Brown Jr., who was considered the country’s foremost authority on wilderness survival, and who taught thousands of people how to track deer, fletch arrows, forage for food and generally thrive in the great outdoors, died on Aug. 16 in Neptune, N.J. He was 74.His son Coty confirmed the death, in a hospital. He said his father had recently been in failing health.Though Mr. Brown’s trim, sturdy build and neatly coifed mustache were more reminiscent of the media magnate Ted Turner than John Rambo, he was in every way the quintessential outdoorsman.His preferred wilderness was the Pine Barrens, a vast, unpeopled expanse of sandy forest that stretches across the middle of New Jersey. He would disappear into the woods for weeks at a time, often with nothing but the clothes on his back, and emerge ruddy in health and even a few pounds heavier.“If you have clothes or a knife, then you aren’t really surviving,” he told The Maine Times in 1998.By way of income, Mr. Brown ran Tracker School, a series of weeklong courses in the intricacies of bare-bones wilderness living and what he referred to as “the wisdom of the track.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hettie Jones, Poet and Author Who Nurtured the Beats, Dies at 90

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      She and her husband, LeRoi Jones, published works by their literary friends. After he left her and became Amiri Baraka, she found her own voice.Hettie Jones, a poet and author who with her husband, LeRoi Jones (who later became the incendiary poet and playwright Amiri Baraka), made her household a hub for Beat writers and other artists — but who was often described as a footnote in the rise of her famous spouse as “the white wife” he disavowed — died on Aug. 13 in Philadelphia. She was 90.Her daughter Kellie Jones confirmed the death.Raised in a conventional middle-class Jewish household in Queens, Ms. Jones was musical, rebellious and ambitious, uninterested in tweedy academia or suburban domesticity. She dropped out of graduate school at Columbia University, where she was studying drama, to work at The Record Changer, a jazz magazine, for $1 an hour. There she met a charismatic young poet named LeRoi Jones, and they fell in love.They hung out at the Five Spot on Cooper Square, listening to jazz musicians like Thelonious Monk. Though they were the rare mixed-race couple in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s, theirs was a mostly colorblind world, Ms. Jones thought — until it wasn’t.She recalled the day they were walking together and heard jeers and racial slurs from behind. She wheeled around to protest, but Mr. Jones held her back.Ms. Jones in the 1960s. She was musical, rebellious and ambitious, uninterested in tweedy academia or suburban domesticity despite her conventional upbringing.via Jones familyThe situation was more dangerous for him, she realized, struck by her own naïveté and ignorance. (At the time, more than half the country had laws criminalizing interracial marriage.) She also realized, as she later wrote, that “to live like this I would have to defer to his judgment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scott Bloomquist, Champion Dirt-Track Driver, Dies at 60

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      Styling himself as a rebel, he won more than 600 races and nine championships in a 40-year career.Scott Bloomquist, a superstar dirt-track racer who won more than 600 races and whose car bore the image of a skull and crossbones, died on Aug. 16 when the vintage single-engine plane that he was piloting crashed into a barn close to the airstrip on his family farm near Mooresburg, Tenn. He was 60.The Federal Aviation Administration said that Bloomquist was the only person aboard the vintage Piper J-3 aircraft. In a statement confirming the death, Scott Bloomquist Racing posted a statement that described him as “one hell of a wheel man” and said, “Whether you cheered for him or booed for him, you still made noise, and Scott loved you all equally for that.”Bloomquist, whose car bore No. 0 and a skull-and-crossbones image, dueled with Tim McCreadie (No. 39) at the World of Outlaws late-model series championship in Concord, N.C., in 2014.David Allio/Icon Sportswire — Corbis, via Getty ImagesBloomquist was considered one of the greatest drivers on the circuits where he raced. He won nine championships, including four with the United Dirt Track Racing Association’s Hav-A-Tampa Series, three with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and one with the World of Outlaws.Tony Stewart, the three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, owns the Eldora Speedway dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio, where Bloomquist won four elite World 100 races. Bloomquist, Stewart said in a statement, was “probably the smartest guy I’ve ever been around when it come to dirt racing.”Stewart, who has raced on dirt tracks, added, “What he could do behind the wheel of a racecar was matched by the ingenuity he put into building his racecars.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      John Lansing, Who Guided NPR Through Tumultuous Times, Dies at 67

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      He led the broadcasting organization during the coronavirus pandemic, a decline in revenue and a period of extreme political polarization.John Lansing, who as chief executive of NPR from 2019 until earlier this year guided the broadcasting organization through a global pandemic, an imploding media landscape and widening political polarization that called into question some of its journalistic principles, died on Aug. 14 at his home in Eagle River, Wis. He was 67.An NPR representative confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.Mr. Lansing, who had been in the news business since he graduated from high school, arrived at NPR with a mission to broaden its reach beyond traditional radio into media like podcasts and newsletters.He also announced what he considered his “north star”: a commitment to expand NPR’s audience to include a younger and more diverse demographic, and a parallel commitment to diversify, equity and inclusion in its coverage, sources and staff.His changes included documenting the diversity of sources, introducing unconscious bias training and hiring people of color for both on- and off-air positions.“I felt that we needed to double down our efforts in D.E.I. throughout our organization in order to fulfill the promise to reflect the entire American public in terms of what America looks like,” he told Current, a magazine covering public media, in 2021.Mr. Lansing started as NPR’s chief executive in October 2019 and was still settling into the role when the Covid pandemic hit. It presented a very different challenge: Radio listenership declined precipitously with the shift to remote work, and NPR developed a $25 million deficit as corporations pulled back sponsorship dollars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mike Lynch, Tech Mogul Acquitted of Fraud, Dies at 59

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      The British entrepreneur, who was found not guilty of fraud charges in the sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard, was celebrating his acquittal when his yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily in a storm.Mike Lynch, a British software mogul who was once celebrated as a top technology leader — only to spend more than a decade defending himself against accusations that he orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in Silicon Valley history — died on Monday after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. He was 59.An official in the Italian city of Palermo confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Lynch’s body had been recovered by divers.Twelve guests and 10 crew members were onboard the yacht, the Bayesian, when it went down during a violent storm. Mr. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued, along with nine crew members and six passengers. Six bodies have been recovered and one person is still missing, Mr. Lynch’s daughter Hannah Lynch.Mr. Lynch’s death came two months after he was acquitted in federal court in San Francisco of criminal fraud charges, tied to the $11 billion sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The takeover, widely regarded among investors as one of the worst deals in history, led HP to accuse Mr. Lynch of deception.U.S. prosecutors charged Mr. Lynch with more than a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the deal, with a potential sentence running to about two decades in prison.Emergency services search for survivors after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.Alberto Lo Bianco/, via LaPresse, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maria Branyas Morera, World’s Oldest Person, Dies at 117

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      Ms. Morera, who cultivated a following on social media as “Super Catalan Grandma,” died peacefully in her sleep, her family said.Maria Branyas Morera, an American-born Spanish woman believed to be the oldest person in the world, has died, according to her family. She was 117.Ms. Morera died on Aug. 19 in Olot, Spain, according to an employee at her nursing home, Residencia Santa Maria del Tura. Her family wrote in a post on her X account that she had died peacefully, in her sleep.“A few days ago she told us: ‘One day I will leave here. I will not try coffee again, nor eat yogurt,’” her family wrote in Spanish in the post. “‘I will also leave my memories, my reflections and I will cease to exist in this body. One day I don’t know, but it’s very close, this long journey will be over.’”Born in March 1907 in San Francisco, Ms. Morera grew up in several American cities, including New Orleans, where her father, a journalist, started a Spanish-language magazine that went bankrupt, according to several news stories written about her life. Facing dire straits, the family returned to Spain when Ms. Morera was a child.There, she lived through the brutal Franco regime, when the country was wracked by civil war, and she survived both World Wars. She had clear memories of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, she told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia.“I haven’t done anything special to get to this age,” she said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País earlier this year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More