Deaths (Obituaries)

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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

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      Ruth Johnson Colvin, Founder of Literacy Volunteers, Dies at 107

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      Working out of her basement, and with no teaching experience, she created a nonprofit that helped people around the world learn to read.Ruth Johnson Colvin, who founded what became one of the world’s largest organizations of volunteers tutoring basic language skills to functionally illiterate peoples in America and other lands, opening doors to citizenship and better lives, died on Sunday at her home in Syracuse, N.Y. She was 107.Her death was confirmed her daughter, Lindy Webb.In 1961, Ms. Colvin, a middle-aged, college-educated Syracuse homemaker and mother of two, was appalled to discover that the recent census had counted 11,055 residents of Onondaga County, N.Y., who could not read or write. She had no experience teaching, but felt passionately that she had to do something about it.A year later, after consulting reading specialists and service agencies, she set up an office in her basement, began recruiting volunteers from churches to be tutors, wrote training manuals and set up a small group to reach out to residents, many of them immigrants, to teach them basic English, offering pathways to jobs, education and rising standards of living.It was slow going at first. By 1967, the group, Literacy Volunteers, was chartered by New York State as a nonprofit with 77 tutors, 100 students and Ms. Colvin as its first president. In succeeding decades under her guidance, the organization won federal and private grants, created programs in many states, won national recognition and changed its name to the Literacy Volunteers of America.After a 2002 merger with Laubach Literacy International, the organization became ProLiteracy, with hundreds of programs and 100,000 tutors in 42 states and 60 other countries, offering lessons in scores of languages at homes, workplaces, prisons and other sites. For 60 years, Ms. Colvin remained a teacher and administrator, traveling widely and writing 12 books on her work.She was showered with honorary doctorates and received the President’s Volunteer Service Award from President Ronald Reagan in 1987, inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, and received the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President George W. Bush in a 2006 White House ceremony.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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      Phil Donahue, Daytime Talk Show Host, Dies at 88

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      Phil Donahue, who in the 1960s reinvented the television talk show with a democratic flourish, inviting audiences to question his guests on topics as resolutely high-minded as human rights and international relations, and as unblushingly lowbrow as male strippers and safe-sex orgies, died on Sunday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 88.His death was confirmed by Susan Arons, a representative of the family.“The Phil Donahue Show” made its debut in 1967 on WLWD-TV in Dayton, Ohio, propelling Mr. Donahue on a 29-year syndicated run, much of it as the unchallenged king of daytime talk television.Almost from the start, “The Phil Donahue Show” dispensed with familiar trappings. There was no opening monologue, no couch, no sidekick, no band — just the host and the guests, focused on a single topic.At the time, audiences were expected to be seen and not heard, unless prompted to applaud. Mr. Donahue changed that. He quickly realized from chatting with audience members during commercial breaks that some of them asked sharper questions than he did. And so he began his practice of stalking the aisles, microphone in hand, and letting those in the seats have their say. He also opened the telephone lines to those watching at home. Electronic democracy, as some called it, had arrived.Few subjects, if any, were off limits for Mr. Donahue, who was said to have told his staff, “I want all the topics hot.” It mattered little that at times the subjects made some viewers, and local station managers, squirm. His very first guest was guaranteed to stir controversy: Madalyn Murray O’Hair, at the time America’s most famous, and widely unpopular, atheist.Across the years — he moved from Dayton to Chicago in 1974, and then to New York in 1985 — he interviewed presidential candidates and Hollywood stars, consumer advocates and feminist pioneers. He also televised a child’s birth, an abortion, a reverse vasectomy and a tubal ligation. From inside a maximum-security prison in Ohio, he examined the American penal system. He was among the first television hosts to explore the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and the first Western journalist to go to Chernobyl, in Ukraine, after the 1986 nuclear accident there.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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      Perry Kurtz, Comedian Who Appeared on ‘America’s Got Talent,’ Dies at 73

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      Mr. Kurtz, who was killed in a hit-and-run on Thursday, honed his routine over decades and eventually became a recognizable face at comedy institutions.Perry Kurtz, who worked stand-up comedy circuits for decades and appeared on “America’s Got Talent” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden,” died on Thursday night in a hit-and-run in Los Angeles. He was 73.A daughter, Zelda Velazquez, confirmed his death. Mr. Kurtz was crossing Ventura Boulevard when he was struck by a car, according to the authorities. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the driver was later arrested.Mr. Kurtz was a familiar face in long-established comedy halls, such as the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, but rose to prominence on the national stage with an appearance on “America’s Got Talent” in 2013 in which he performed a rap wearing a silver suit that gleamed like a disco ball.The performance did not go over well with the judges, who eliminated him from the competition, but it fit a campy persona that Mr. Kurtz embraced.On “The Late Late Show With James Corden” in 2018, Mr. Kurtz walked onstage wearing thick suspenders and a Hawaiian shirt, a keytar hanging around his neck. He proceeded to play “Louie Louie,” made famous by the Kingsmen, using his tongue.“In 1979 I moved to San Francisco to pursue my dream,” Mr. Kurtz said in a 2022 interview with Shoutout LA. “Since then, the only job I’ve had is making people laugh.”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