John Amos played James Evans Sr. on “Good Times,” which featured one of television’s first Black two-parent families. Produced by Norman Lear and co-created by actor Mike Evans, who co-starred on “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” it ran from 1974-79 on CBS.
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Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “ Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89.
Tito Jackson was the third of nine children, including global superstars Michael and Janet, and was part of a music-making family whose songs have sold hundreds of millions of copies.
The pioneering Jones, who worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
Estelle Glaser Laughlin carried a lifelong message of optimism despite coming of age during a terrible time in history. She died this week at the age of 95.
Anthony Gay spent more than 20 years in solitary confinement. He also became an advocate against the practice. He had just been granted compassionate medical release from federal custody, just days before his 51st birthday. He died of lung and liver cancer.
Phil Donahue, whose pioneering daytime talk show launched an indelible television genre that brought success to Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and many others, has died. He was 88.
Dominick Di Meo was an essential figure in the postwar Chicago art scene and part of an art circle known as the Monster Roster. Curator and gallerist John Corbett called it “the first full-fledged movement in Chicago art history.”
Bob Newhart, best remembered now as the star of two hit television shows of the 1970s and 1980s that bore his name, launched his career as a standup comic in the late 1950s.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96.
Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” has died, his daughter said.
Marian Shields Robinson's death was announced by Michelle Obama and other family members in a statement that said “there was and will be only one Marian Robinson. In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life.”
The life and legacy of Val Gray Ward, founder of a pioneering Black theater company, was remembered this past weekend.
A spokesperson for publisher Penguin Random House Canada said Munro, winner of the Nobel literary prize in 2013, died Monday at home in Port Hope, Ontario. Munro had been in frail health for years and often spoke of retirement, a decision that proved final after the author’s 2012 collection, “Dear Life.”
Steve Albini, the influential recording engineer behind Chicago’s Electrical Audio studios and a member of bands like Big Black and Shellac, died Tuesday at age 61.
Robert MacNeil first gained prominence for his coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings for the public broadcasting service and began his half-hour “Robert MacNeil Report” on PBS in 1975 with his friend Jim Lehrer as Washington correspondent.
