Deaths (Obituaries)

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      George E. Smith Dead: Nobel Prize Winner Was 95

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      Together with Willard S. Boyle, he invented an imaging device that is an essential part of nearly every telescope, photocopier and digital camera used today.George E. Smith, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing a revolutionary imaging device that has not only allowed scientists to see the universe more clearly but has also made it possible for hundreds of millions of people to record every birthday and vacation for posterity, died on Wednesday at his home in Barnegat Township, N.J. He was 95.His death was confirmed by his daughter Lauren Lanning.It was while he was working at Bell Laboratories in 1969 that Dr. Smith and a colleague, Willard S. Boyle, came up with the idea for what is known as the charge-coupled device, or CCD — a technology that is an essential component of nearly every telescope, medical scanner, photocopier and digital camera in use today. Their work helped build “the foundation to our modern information society,” Gunnar Oquist, the Nobel academy’s secretary general, said when it was announced that Dr. Smith and Dr. Boyle would share the 2009 prize for physics. (They split the award with Charles K. Kao, who was recognized for work that resulted in the development of fiber-optic cables.)Dr. Smith, left, and Dr. Boyle in 2009, at a news conference in Stockholm after they won the Nobel Prize in Physics.Bertil Ericson/Scanpix Sweden, via Associated PressDr. Smith and Dr. Boyle had been trying to create better memory storage for computers when the idea for the CCD arose. They thought the photoelectric effect — which Einstein had explained, an explanation that won him a 1921 Nobel Prize — might offer a solution.The photoelectric phenomenon occurs when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a metal surface, dislodging electrons from atoms and causing a current to flow through the metal. The device that Dr. Smith and Dr. Boyle created employs rows of tiny capacitors to store and transfer the electrical charge — essentially capturing light — and uses the information to construct an image.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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      Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writer Who Condemned Colonists and Elites, Dies at 87

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      Mr. Ngugi composed the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language on prison toilet paper while being held by Kenyan authorities. He spent many prolific years in exile.Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in his native Kenya as much as the misdoings of the postcolonial elite, and who led a passionate campaign for African authors to eschew the languages of foreign occupiers, died on Wednesday in a hospital in Buford, Ga. He was 87.His son Nducu confirmed the death.Often tipped as a potential Nobel laureate, Mr. Ngugi (pronounced GOO-ghee) spent many years in exile to avoid the wrath of a government he criticized. For several decades, he taught comparative literature and English as a professor at the University of California, Irvine. His work inspired successive generations of African writers along with contemporaries such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, both of Nigeria.His canon drew enthusiastic praise, including for his debut novel, “Weep Not, Child,” in 1964. It is the story of Kenyan brothers whose family must confront the challenges of the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The book has been described as the first major novel in English by an East African author.By contrast, “Devil on the Cross” in 1980, composed in his native tongue as “Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini,” was regarded as the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language, spoken by the country’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu. The book, about thieves who vie for supremacy by stealing from the people, sent him on a career writing in his own language and subsequently translating his work into English.Mr. Ngũgĩ began writing “Devil On the Cross” (1982) on prison toilet paper while he was detained by Kenyan authorities for a play that he wrote.HeinemannHe wrote “Devil on the Cross” on prison toilet paper while detained by Kenyan authorities for a year without trial because of a play he wrote. In a New York Times review in 2018, the writer Ariel Dorfman said the book was a “narrative of the devilish temptations he faced and the ruses used to thwart his jailers as he sat writing night after night in his cell.” The novel “shows Ngugi in full command of his craft,” Mr. Dorfman wrote.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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      Rick Derringer, 77, Who Sang ‘Hang On Sloopy’ and ‘Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo,’ Dies

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      A Zelig-like rocker, the guitarist, singer and songwriter collaborated with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Peter Frampton and composed Hulk Hogan’s “Real American” theme.Rick Derringer, the ubiquitous rocker who sang the hit songs “Hang On Sloopy” and “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” in a music career that spanned several decades and also included collaborations with Hulk Hogan and Weird Al Yankovic, died on Monday in Ormond Beach, Fla. He was 77.His longtime caretaker and friend, Tony Wilson, announced his death in statement on Tuesday. No cause was given.From his early garage rock success to his many contributions to albums or tours by music royalty — Barbra Streisand, Cyndi Lauper and Peter Frampton all enlisted him — Mr. Derringer introduced himself to audiences across several generations.One of his better-known and enduring collaborations was with the Edgar Winter Group, for which he produced the instrumental chart-topper “Frankenstein,” which the band released in 1972.Early on, Mr. Derringer was the shaggy-haired guitar impresario who was the frontman for the band the McCoys, who rose to the top of the Billboard singles chart in October 1965 with their catchy rendition of “Hang On Sloopy.”The song, about a girl known as Sloopy from a rough part of town, has become synonymous with Ohio State University, where the marching band first played it during a Buckeyes football game in 1965. In 1985, the Ohio Legislature adopted it as the official state rock song.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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      Charles B. Rangel: A Life in Pictures

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      Charles B. Rangel died Monday at age 94, leaving behind a larger-than-life legacy in Harlem, his birthplace and longtime home, which he represented in Congress for more than four decades.To veterans, friends and Harlem residents who gathered on Monday for a Memorial Day lunch at American Legion Post 398, a few blocks from his home, he was just Charlie: a onetime member of the Legion post, a political powerhouse who always made himself accessible to his constituents.Nadine Pittman, a longtime American Legion Auxiliary member and a lifelong Harlem resident, described Mr. Rangel as “down-to-earth with the people.”“He’d take the time and talk to you,” Ms. Pittman said. “I loved him as a person.”Mr. Rangel retired as the ninth-longest continuously serving member of the House of Representatives in U.S. history. He was part of a quartet of venerable Harlem politicians known as the Gang of Four.Mr. Rangel was born and raised in Harlem and attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx until he dropped out to join the Army in 1948. He fought in the Korean War and was awarded a Bronze Star for valor after leading his all-Black unit to safety.Mr. Rangel was elected in 1966 to the State Assembly. In 1970, he was voted into Congress, unseating Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a longtime incumbent.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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      Tony Bechara, Painter Who Championed Latino Artists, Dies at 83

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      He turned away from a potential career in the law or international relations to produce abstract paintings, and he headed El Museo del Barrio.Tony Bechara’s parents didn’t believe he could make a living as an artist. So he majored in philosophy and economics in college and earned a master’s degree in international relations. He started law school, too, but in his mid-20s he found his true passion as a painter.Returning to New York from Paris, where he studied history at the Sorbonne, he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts in 1967, where he began painting black-and-white figurative imagery.Animated by the chaos of the city’s streets, he graduated to painting kaleidoscopic grids that he meticulously mapped, and he was embraced by critics and invited to exhibit in museums. He became a patron of the arts and of fledgling Latino artists and, for 15 years, led El Museo del Barrio, a showcase of Puerto Rican art that he expanded to encompass works from all over Latin America.Mr. Bechara died in a Manhattan hospital on April 23, his 83rd birthday. The cause was heart failure, a spokeswoman for El Museo del Barrio said.From 2000 to 2015, he served as chairman of the board of the museum, on Fifth Avenue and 104th Street on the edge of East Harlem, where many newcomers from Puerto Rico originally settled (barrio is Spanish for neighborhood).His mandate was to broaden the museum’s collection and exhibits beyond the Barrio to include art from Latin America and the Caribbean. That expanded purview prompted some local critics to complain that the museum was neglecting its primary focus on Puerto Rican culture.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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      Susan Brownmiller, Who Reshaped Views About Rape, Dies at 90

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      Susan Brownmiller, the feminist author, journalist and activist whose book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” helped define the modern view of rape, debunking it as an act of passion and reframing it as a crime of power and violence, died on Saturday. She was 90.Alix Shulman, a longtime friend, confirmed Ms. Brownmiller’s death at a hospital in New York, which she said came after a long illness.“Against Our Will,” published in 1975, was translated into a dozen languages and ranked by the New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.Among other things, it offered the first comprehensive history of rape across the centuries, starting with ancient Babylon, and examined its use as a wartime military tactic to further subjugate the losing side.The book’s publication — along with real-time reports of mass rape in war-ravaged Bangladesh — joined a tide of events that were reshaping society’s attitude toward rape.The ascendant women’s movement was already opening the public’s eyes about sexual violence. Anti-rape groups had started to form in the early 1970s. Groundbreaking works like “Our Bodies, Ourselves” (1971) were empowering women to take control of their bodies and their sexuality. When “Against Our Will” arrived, the country seemed ready to grapple with its implications.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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      Frank Moore, a Top Aide to Jimmy Carter, Is Dead at 89

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      After serving as chief of staff when Carter was governor of Georgia, he followed him to Washington, where both men encountered a hostile political establishment.Frank Moore, who as President Jimmy Carter’s congressional liaison toiled with mixed results to sell the agenda of a self-professed outsider to veterans of Washington, died on Thursday at his home in St. Simons Island, Ga. He was 89.His son Brian confirmed the death.Mr. Carter was known for having a “Georgia Mafia” around him during his presidency. Mr. Moore was a leading member of that group, and the two men remained close until Mr. Carter’s death. According to the Georgia newspaper The Gainesville Times, Mr. Moore was the last living person to have worked for Mr. Carter for the entirety of his political career: as an aide from his days as a Georgia state senator all the way through his presidency.In Washington, the two men had what might have seemed like an ideal chance for legislative achievements. For all four years of the Carter administration, the Democrats controlled every branch of government, and from January 1977 to January 1979 they had supermajorities in the House and the Senate.Yet it was a less ideologically homogenous era for the party. The Democratic caucus in the Senate, for example, encompassed liberals like Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, staunch anti-Communists like Henry Jackson of Washington and conservative segregationists like John C. Stennis of Mississippi.These separate factions and their wily tacticians were relatively unfamiliar to Mr. Carter and Mr. Moore, who had first met far away from the nation’s capital — on a local planning panel in Georgia in the mid-1960s.In the 1970s, after Mr. Carter had been elected governor, he made Mr. Moore his chief of staff. During Mr. Carter’s presidential run, Mr. Moore, a soft-voiced 40-year-old who held the title of national finance chairman, was one of a few of Mr. Carter’s Georgia allies to set up his campaign office in Washington.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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      Leslie Epstein, Writer Who Could Both Do and Teach, Dies at 87

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      His Holocaust novel “King of the Jews” was widely praised. He also wrote about his show-business family and taught writing at Boston University.Leslie Epstein, a celebrated novelist and revered writing teacher who was born into Hollywood royalty — his father and uncle collaborated on the script for the classic 1942 film “Casablanca”— died on May 18 in Boston. He was 87.His wife, Ilene, said the cause of his death, at a hospital, was complications of heart surgery.The best known of Mr. Epstein’s novels was “King of the Jews” (1979), a powerful, biting and at times humorous story about the leader of a Judenrat, or Jewish Council, in a Polish ghetto during the Holocaust.Councils of elders, which were established by the Nazis to run the ghettos, provided basic services to the Jews who were forced to live there; they also had to make the morally fraught decision to provide their occupiers with lists of Jews to deport to labor and concentration camps. When Adam Czerniakow, the leader of the Warsaw council, received an order to round up Jews for deportation, he apparently chose to end his life rather than obey.Isaiah Chaim Trumpelman, the protagonist of “King of the Jews,” was modeled on Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the megalomaniacal leader of the Jewish Council in Lodz, Poland. The character of Mr. Rumkowski had resonated with Mr. Epstein since he read a single paragraph about him in a book about the Holocaust in the 1960s.“He rode around with his lion’s mane of hair and his black cape, put his picture on ghetto money (to buy nothing) and ghetto stamps (to mail nowhere), and decided which of his fellow Jews should or should not be sent to death,” Mr. Epstein wrote, about Mr. Rumkowski, in an essay for Tablet magazine in 2023.Writing about “King of the Jews” in The New York Times Book Review, Robert Alter praised Mr. Epstein’s focus on “the morally ambiguous politics of survival” practiced by Council leaders “who were both violently thrust and seductively drawn into a position of absolute power and absolute impotence in which no human being could continue to function with any moral coherence.”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