Famous University Of Chicago Alumni
Voting Rules
People on this list must have gone to University of Chicago and be of some renown.
List of famous alumni from University of Chicago, with photos when available. Prominent graduates from University of Chicago include celebrities, politicians, business people, athletes and more. This list of distinguished University of Chicago alumni is loosely ordered by relevance, so the most recognizable celebrities who attended University of Chicago are at the top of the list. This directory is not just composed of graduates of this school, as some of the famous people on this list didn't necessarily earn a degree from University of Chicago.
Examples of graduates on this list include Misha Collins and Ed Asner.
This list answers the questions “Which famous people went to University of Chicago?” and “Which celebrities are University of Chicago alumni?”Robin Harper
In her initial years at Linden Lab, Robin led the emergence of the Second Life brand, including naming, positioning and the other marketing efforts supporting introduction of this life-changing technology. In the past few years, she shifted focus to the interface between the Second Life Residents and Linden Lab, facilitating communication at all levels and establishing policies, operations and support mechanisms to address issues ranging from social mores to technical support; all with the aim of ensuring inspired content creation is not compromised by the inevitable hurdles encountered when breaking new ground. In the last year, Robin has resumed leadership of Marketing while continuing to implement new programs geared to ensuring the booming, worldwide Second Life population's voice is heard and life is good, or at least gets better and better. Prior to joining Linden Lab in 2002, Harper was the Vice President of Marketing at Maxis, a division of Electronic Arts (EA). At Maxis she played a prominent role in their emergence as the leader in PC simulation games and was a core member of the senior executive team that guided the company through their IPO and subsequent sale to Electronic Arts. Also while at Maxis, she established SimCity as one of the most recognized brand names in entertainment software, and was named one of the marketing 100 by Advertising Age/Newsweek. In addition to Maxis and Linden Lab, Harper has held senior marketing positions at Ninth House Network (corporate learning and online education), at Mondo Media (online entertainment) and in advertising, leading media and later account management services for clients ranging from Clorox to Nintendo. She holds an MBA in marketing from the University of Chicago.- Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who is a co-founder and the executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) of Oracle Corporation. As of March 2019, he was listed by Forbes magazine as the fourth-wealthiest person in the United States, and as the seventh-wealthiest in the world, with a fortune of $66.1 billion, increased from $54.5 billion in 2018.
- Age: 80
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York, Lower East Side
- Harvey Levin's career started off quietly. Born in Los Angeles is 1950, he lived a mostly suburban life and eventually attended college and then earned his law degree by 1975. He was a practicing lawyer in the state of California for over 20 years, focusing primarily on teaching law at a variety of colleges. In the late '70s, Levin became involved with the debate around California Prop 13, an amendment that lowered property taxes. That led the young lawyer to a regular column in the Los Angeles Times as well as numerous appearances on local radio stations. He took to TV, and formally entered the field in the early '80s, first as a legal analyst for LA's local NBC affiliate KNBC. Levin's star rose higher as he was a regular commentator for the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the 1990s. As he became more involved in entertainment, Levin stopped practicing law in 1996. The year after, he revived "The People's Court" (Syndicated 1997- ), which led to numerous Emmy nominations over the ensuing years as Levin was a producer. In the early 2000s, he produced "Celebrity Justice" (2002-2005), which functioned mostly as a rough draft for what would become Levin's biggest enterprise: TMZ. In 2005, the website TMZ launched, focused on the "thirty-mile zone" around Hollywood studios. The cutting-edge celebrity news site employed somewhat questionable journalistic practices to break stories, as Levin has admitted they often pay sources. TMZ grew in size and notoriety, especailly after breaking stories such as Mel Gibson's DUI and Michael Jackson's death. In 2007, Levin launched "TMZ on TV" (Fox 2007- ), a weekday news show recapping the major stories of the day.
- Age: 74
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA
- Roger Ebert, renown film critic and journalist, was born on June 18, 1942, in Urbana, Illinois. Fascinated by journalism from a young age, Ebert began his career as a sports writer for The News-Gazette in his hometown. His talent for writing was evident early on and, after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he joined the Chicago Sun-Times as their film critic in 1967 - a position he held for over four decades. Ebert's name became synonymous with film critique, largely due to his sharp and insightful reviews. His unique style of criticism, which paired depth of analysis with approachability, made him a popular figure among both cinephiles and casual viewers. An important milestone in his career was his creation of the movie review television program Siskel & Ebert with fellow critic Gene Siskel. This syndicated show, known for its distinctive "thumbs up, thumbs down" rating system, further solidified Ebert's place in popular culture. Aside from his celebrated work as a film critic, Ebert was also an accomplished author. He penned numerous books on cinema, including I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks. His dedication to his craft earned him many accolades, the most significant being the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975, making him the first film critic to receive such honor. Despite facing health complications later in life, Ebert continued to share his passion for cinema until his passing in 2013. His legacy continues to influence the world of film critique, underscoring his status as a seminal figure in the realm of entertainment journalism.
- Age: Dec. at 70 (1942-2013)
- Birthplace: Urbana, Illinois, USA
The Best Movies Roger Ebert Gave Four StarsSee all
- 1The Godfather3,097 Votes
- 2Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark2,679 Votes
- 3Schindler's List2,455 Votes
- David Rockefeller (June 12, 1915 – March 20, 2017) was an American banker who served as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He was the oldest living member of the third generation of the Rockefeller family, and family patriarch from August 2004 until his death in March 2017. Rockefeller was the youngest child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and a grandson of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller. He was noted for his wide-ranging political connections and foreign travel, in which he met with many foreign leaders. His fortune was estimated at $3.3 billion at the time of his death in March 2017.
- Age: 109
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York
- A familiar face to film and television audiences for over five decades, Emmy-winning character actor Harry Morgan perfected the role of the lovable curmudgeon on one of the most beloved programs in television history. After proving himself on the stages of Broadway, the gruff-voiced actor became a fixture in features films with supporting roles opposite big names like Henry Fonda in "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), Gary Cooper in "High Noon" (1952) and Jimmy Stewart in the big band biopic "The Glenn Miller Story" (1953). By the mid-1950s Morgan had begun to establish himself as the ubiquitous television presence with an endearing performance on the sitcom "December Bride" (CBS, 1954-1960) and its spin-off "Pete and Gladys" (CBS, 1960-62). Equally adept at serious drama, he memorably played Jack Webb's taciturn partner Bill Gannon on the revived version of "Dragnet" (NBC, 1967-1970). It was, however, his lengthy run as the fatherly Colonel Sherman T. Potter on the wartime comedy-drama "M*A*S*H" (CBS, 1972-1983) that would earn the veteran actor TV immortality. Though he would go on to portray other increasingly flinty, avuncular types on a variety of programs well into his eighth decade, it was his role as the no-nonsense leader of the 4077th that Morgan would later describe as "the best part I ever had."
- Age: Dec. at 96 (1915-2011)
- Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan, USA
- Actor Will Geer originally studied to become a botanist, getting a master's degree at the University of Chicago, where he became heavily involved in left-wing politics. He had a small part in Cecil B. DeMille's epic western "Union Pacific," but worked mainly on the stage in the 1940s before coming back to movies in westerns such as "Lust for Gold" with Ida Lupino, and the superb Anthony Mann movie "Winchester '73," which starred James Stewart. Mann used Geer again in "The Tall Target," but at this point, Geer's left-wing leanings, expressed most fully in the infamous 1954 propaganda movie "Salt of the Earth," got him blacklisted in Hollywood, and so there was a large gap in his work until he returned to act in Otto Preminger's controversial "Advise and Consent" in 1962. In his later years, Geer acted mainly on television, and he won acclaim as the grandfather on the long-running family series "The Waltons" in the 1970s.
- Age: Dec. at 76 (1902-1978)
- Birthplace: Frankfort, Indiana, USA
- Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American novelist, playwright, poet, literary critic, and psychotherapist, although now best known as a social critic and anarchist philosopher. Though often thought of as a sociologist, he vehemently denied being one in a presentation in the Experimental College at San Francisco State in 1964, and in fact said he could not read sociology because it was too often lifeless. The author of dozens of books including Growing Up Absurd and The Community of Scholars, Goodman was an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and a frequently cited inspiration to the student movement of that decade. A lay therapist for a number of years, he was a co-founder of Gestalt therapy in the 1940s and 1950s.
- Age: Dec. at 60 (1911-1972)
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York, Greenwich Village
- Kurt Vonnegut, one of America's most influential writers of the 20th century, was a figure whose work redefined the landscape of contemporary literature. Born in Indianapolis in 1922 to parents of German descent, Vonnegut came of age amidst the Great Depression, an era that was to greatly influence his perspective and later works. His early professional pursuits were not geared towards literary accomplishment; instead, he studied biochemistry at Cornell University before enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II. Vonnegut's experiences as a soldier became a significant milestone in his life and writing. Most notably, his survival of the infamous Dresden bombing in February 1945 had a profound impact on his worldview, ultimately serving as inspiration for his most celebrated novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. This masterpiece captivated audiences by its unconventional narrative style and its fusion of historical events with science fiction elements, becoming a powerful anti-war statement. After his military service, Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago where he studied anthropology - a subject that would also permeate his future narratives. The 1960s and 1970s marked the apex of Vonnegut's literary career. Alongside Slaughterhouse-Five, his notable works included Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Mother Night - all of which demonstrated his ability to weave complex social commentary into compelling narratives, often infused with satirical humor and philosophical musings. Despite the gravity of his themes, Vonnegut's simple, conversational prose style made his work accessible to a wide range of readers. His death in 2007 left a lasting void in American literature, yet his legacy continues to inspire generations of readers and writers alike.
- Age: Dec. at 84 (1922-2007)
- Birthplace: USA, Indianapolis, Indiana
The Best Kurt Vonnegut BooksSee all- 1The Sirens of Titan212 Votes
- 2Slaughterhouse-Five282 Votes
- 3Cat's Cradle255 Votes
- Ed Asner, born on November 15, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, is a legend in the world of entertainment with his unmatched talent and distinct voice. The son of Morris David Asner, a small business owner, and Lizzie Seliger, a housewife, Asner's humble beginnings did not deter him from pursuing a career in acting. After serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, he honed his craft at the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago, propelling him towards a successful career in Hollywood. Asner's breakthrough came when he was cast as Lou Grant in the television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show. His portrayal of the gruff but lovable news director garnered him critical acclaim and set the stage for a spin-off series titled Lou Grant. With these roles, Asner made history by becoming the first actor to receive Emmy Awards for a sitcom and a drama for the same character. He continued to demonstrate his versatility by voicing characters in popular animated films and series, including Carl Fredricksen in Up and Santa Claus in Elf. Beyond his acting career, Asner was also a respected figure in the realm of social activism. Serving two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he used his platform to champion workers' rights within the entertainment industry. His commitment to causes such as ending homelessness, improving conditions for migrant farm workers, and advocating for universal healthcare further solidified his legacy. In recognition of his efforts, he received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2002. On August 29, 2021, Asner passed away at his Los Angeles home at the age of 91.
- Age: Dec. at 91 (1929-2021)
- Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri, USA
- Having been one of the first to portray disaffected youths in a number of social dramas, director Nicholas Ray pioneered a subgenre while almost singlehandedly putting a spotlight on teenage angst. Ray perfected the character of the detached loner railing against integration into society with "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), which starred James Dean in the young actor's most iconic role before his tragic death just months before the film's release. Prior to "Rebel," Ray directed "They Live by Night" (1949), one the hallmarks of film noir, and "In a Lonely Place" (1950), which featured arguably one of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances of his career. Ray continued his exploration into the darker corners of American life with "On Dangerous Ground" (1951), before breaking away from noir with a pair of Westerns, "The Lusty Men" (1952) and the female-centric "Johnny Guitar" (1954). But it was "Rebel Without a Cause" that cemented his legacy and made him a darling of the French New Wave critics from Cahiers du Cinema, who hoisted him up as something of a filmmaking god, despite Ray's failure to achieve such success again. Struggling with drug and alcohol addiction later in life, Ray hit bottom with "Party Girl" (1958) and "The Savage Innocents" (1960), before taking a big payday to direct his final two movies, "King of Kings" (1961) and "55 Days at Peking" (1963). Ray collapsed on set of the latter film and never returned to directing Hollywood movies, only to live out the rest of his days as a professor in upstate New York. Despite the obscurity of his final years, Ray nonetheless loomed large over cinema history for both his technical and thematic influences that were felt decades later.
- Age: Dec. at 67 (1911-1979)
- Birthplace: Galesville, Wisconsin, USA
- John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics. He was a major educational reformer for the 20th century. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."Known for his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.
- Age: Dec. at 92 (1859-1952)
- Birthplace: Burlington, Vermont
- Patricia Roberts Harris (May 31, 1924 – March 23, 1985) served in the American administration of President Jimmy Carter as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (which was renamed the Secretary of Health and Human Services during her tenure). She was the first African American woman to serve in the United States Cabinet, and the first to enter the line of succession to the Presidency. She previously served as United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and was the first African-American woman to represent the United States as an ambassador.
- Age: Dec. at 60 (1924-1985)
- Birthplace: Mattoon, Illinois, USA
Harvey Fletcher (September 11, 1884 – July 23, 1981) was an American physicist. Known as the "father of stereophonic sound," he is credited with the invention of the 2-A audiometer and an early electronic hearing aid. He was an investigator into the nature of speech and hearing, and made contributions in acoustics, electrical engineering, speech, medicine, music, atomic physics, sound pictures, and education.- Age: Dec. at 96 (1884-1981)
- Birthplace: Provo, Utah
- Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 – April 3, 1950) was an American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. He was one of the first scholars to study African-American history. A founder of The Journal of Negro History in 1916, Woodson has been cited as the "father of black history". In February 1926 he launched the celebration of "Negro History Week", the precursor of Black History Month.Born in Virginia, the son of former slaves, Woodson had to put off schooling while he worked in the coal mines of West Virginia. He made it to Berea College, becoming a teacher and school administrator. He gained graduate degrees at the University of Chicago and was the second African American to obtain a PhD degree from Harvard University. Most of his academic career was spent at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where Woodson eventually served as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
- Age: Dec. at 74 (1875-1950)
- Birthplace: New Canton, Virginia
- Calvin Souther Fuller (May 25, 1902 – October 28, 1994) was a physical chemist at AT&T Bell Laboratories where he worked for 37 years from 1930 to 1967. Fuller was part of a team in basic research that found answers to physical challenges. He helped develop synthetic rubber during World War II, he was involved in early experiments of zone melting, he is credited with devising the method of transistor production yielding diffusion transistors, he produced some of the first solar cells with high efficiency, and he researched polymers and their applications.
- Age: Dec. at 92 (1902-1994)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Henry Ransom Cecil McBay (1914–1995) was an African - American chemist and a teacher.
- Age: Dec. at 81 (1914-1995)
- Birthplace: Mexia, Texas
Robert Weitbrecht
InventorRobert Haig Weitbrecht was an engineer at SRI International and later the spin-off company Weitbrecht Communications who invented a type of a modem (a form of acoustic coupler).- Age: Dec. at 63 (1920-1983)
- Birthplace: Orange, California
- Lloyd Augustus Hall (June 20, 1894 – January 2, 1971) was an African American chemist, who contributed to the science of food preservation. By the end of his career, Hall had amassed 59 United States patents, and a number of his inventions were also patented in other countries.
- Age: Dec. at 76 (1894-1971)
- Birthplace: Elgin, Illinois
- Jeb Stuart Magruder (November 5, 1934 – May 11, 2014) was an American businessman and high-level political operative in the Republican Party who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.He served President Richard Nixon in various capacities, including acting as deputy director of the president's 1972 re-election campaign, Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP). In August 1973, Magruder pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to wiretap, obstruct justice and defraud the United States. He served seven months in federal prison.Magruder later attended Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He spoke publicly about ethics and his role in the Watergate scandal. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he gave interviews in which he changed his accounts of actions by various participants in the Watergate coverup, including claiming that President Richard Nixon ordered the break-ins.
- Age: Dec. at 79 (1934-2014)
- Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA
William Thetford
William Thetford (April 25, 1923 – July 4, 1988) was an American psychologist, medical psychologist and professor. He is best known for his collaboration with Helen Schucman in typing the original manuscript and being on the editing team for A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a self-study curriculum in religious psychology. He died in 1988, aged 65, in Tiburon, California, after having made his involvement with the ACIM material and its study the most central focus of his life.- Age: Dec. at 65 (1923-1988)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Carl Sagan was a renowned American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author, born on November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His profound curiosity about the cosmos was evident from his early years, which led him to study physics and astronomy. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Chicago and subsequently obtained his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1960. Sagan held academic positions at prestigious institutions such as Harvard University and Cornell University, where he imparted his knowledge to eager minds. Sagan's contributions to the field of space science were nothing short of monumental. He played a pivotal role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets. Notably, he helped select the Mars landing sites for the Viking probes and was instrumental in the creation of the gold-anodized plaques and golden records carried by the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and Voyager spacecraft. These records contained sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life on Earth and were intended for any extraterrestrial life that might find them. Apart from his scientific endeavors, Sagan was an eloquent communicator of science, making complex concepts accessible to the general public. His landmark television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage aired in 1980, captivating millions with its exploration of the universe's mysteries. He also penned many books, including the critically acclaimed Pale Blue Dot and Contact, the latter of which was adapted into a successful film. Sagan passed away on December 20, 1996, but his legacy continues to inspire curiosity and wonder about the cosmos.
- Age: Dec. at 62 (1934-1996)
- Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover, and In America. Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation."
- Age: Dec. at 71 (1933-2004)
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology and is regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time.Hubble discovered that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. He used the strong direct relationship between a classical Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period (discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt) for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances.Hubble provided evidence that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth, a property now known as "Hubble's law", despite the fact that it had been both proposed and demonstrated observationally two years earlier by Georges Lemaître. Hubble-Lemaître's Law implies that the universe is expanding. A decade before, the American astronomer Vesto Slipher had provided the first evidence that the light from many of these nebulae was strongly red-shifted, indicative of high recession velocities.Hubble's name is most widely recognized for the Hubble Space Telescope which was named in his honor, with a model prominently displayed in his hometown of Marshfield, Missouri.
- Age: Dec. at 63 (1889-1953)
- Birthplace: Marshfield, Missouri
- Anna Chlumsky's run as Hollywood's top female child star began with her scene-stealing portrayal of the loveable mortician's daughter, Vada Sultenfuss, in the 1991 romantic family feature "My Girl." Only 11 years old when she experienced a kind of overnight stardom - and her first onscreen kiss from "My Girl" co-star and fellow child phenomenon, Macauley Culkin - the pouty-lipped young actress with a natural gift for acting and a beauty that belied her age went on to star in the less successful sequel "My Girl 2" (1994), along with appearances in a plethora of movies and television series through the end of the millennium. Unlike other child stars sucked into the spotlight who outgrew their fame and had nothing left to show for it, the bright actress put her acting career on hold in order to pursue an education - and with it, sacrificing her upward trajectory in Hollywood. After returning to the screen in 2005, she maintained a steady career as a character actress in film and TV before landing a winning supporting role in the political satire "Veep" (HBO 2012- ) - but so winning was her performance as Vada, that her once-in-a-lifetime role guaranteed a certain kind of Hollywood immortality.
- Age: 44
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Rafael Suarez, Jr. (born March 5, 1957), known as Ray Suarez, is an American broadcast journalist and the current John J. McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. Most recently, Suarez was the host of Inside Story on Al Jazeera America Story, a daily news program on Al Jazeera America, until that network ceased operation in 2016. Suarez joined the PBS NewsHour in 1999 and was a senior correspondent for the evening news program on the PBS television network until 2013. He is also host of the international news and analysis public radio program America Abroad from Public Radio International. He was the host of the National Public Radio program Talk of the Nation from 1993-1999. In his more than 30-year career in the news business, he has also worked as a radio reporter in London and Rome, as a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, and as a reporter for the NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He is currently co-host of the radio program WorldAffairs on KQED.
- Age: 67
- Birthplace: New York City, New York, USA
- Allan David Bloom (September 14, 1930 – October 7, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist, and academician. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon, and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Tel Aviv University, Yale University, École Normale Supérieure of Paris, and the University of Chicago. Bloom championed the idea of Great Books education and became famous for his criticism of contemporary American higher education, with his views being expressed in his bestselling 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind. Characterized as a conservative in the popular media, Bloom denied that he was a conservative, and asserted that what he sought to defend was the "theoretical life". Saul Bellow wrote Ravelstein, a roman à clef based on Bloom, his friend and colleague at the University of Chicago.
- Age: Dec. at 62 (1930-1992)
- Birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana
- William Ramsey Clark (born December 18, 1927) is an American lawyer, activist and former federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, notably serving as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969; previously he was Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967 and Assistant Attorney General from 1961 to 1965. As attorney general, he was known for his vigorous opposition to the death penalty, his aggressive support of civil liberties and civil rights, and his dedication in enforcing antitrust provisions. Clark supervised the drafting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968. Since leaving public office Clark has led many progressive activism campaigns, including opposition to the War on Terror, and he has offered legal defense to controversial figures such as Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Lyndon LaRouche. Clark is one of only two living members of Johnson's Cabinet, along with Alan Boyd.
- Age: 97
- Birthplace: Texas, USA, Dallas
- Ernest Gary Gygax ( GY-gaks; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson. In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The following year, he and Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. In the same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a D&D game (the "Dungeon Master") a rough script and ideas on how to run a particular gaming scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series. After leaving TSR in 1986 over issues with its new majority owner, Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre Dangerous Journeys in 1992. He designed another gaming system called Lejendary Adventure, released in 1999. In 2005, Gygax was involved in the Castles & Crusades role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of D&D and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax. Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, Gygax suffered two strokes, narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack, was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and died in March 2008.
- Age: Dec. at 69 (1938-2008)
- Birthplace: USA, Chicago, Illinois
- A witty and gifted golden age veteran who amassed a daunting list of credits across three mediums, actress Celeste Holm initially planned to become a ballerina before developing a love of acting that blossomed when she made her mark on Broadway in "Oklahoma!" (1943-48) and "Bloomer Girl" (1944-46). Proficient at acting, singing and dancing, Holm was a natural for the movies and signed with 20th Century Fox in 1946, making her film debut in "Three Little Girls in Blue" (1946) before winning an Oscar for her supporting role in "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947). From there, she did especially fine work in "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950), but Holm returned to the stage with "Affairs of State" (1950-52) and as a replacement lead performer in the Broadway juggernauts "The King and I" (1951-54), while appearing sporadically on screen in films like "The Tender Trap" (1955) and "High Society" (1956). Holm also worked frequently on television as a guest star and recurring performer on a handful of series that often only lasted a season, though she received acclaim for her work on "Insight" (Syndicated, 1960-1983) and "Backstairs at the White House" (NBC, 1979). Even after decades of distinguished work in a commendable variety of roles, which included one of her last appearances on the series "Promised Land" (CBS, 1996-99), Holm always displayed energy and conviction at an age when most performers happily settle into retirement and kept performing right into the next century.
- Age: Dec. at 95 (1917-2012)
- Birthplace: New York, New York, USA
Abram Shulsky
Abram Shulsky (born August 15, 1942) is a neoconservative scholar who has worked for U.S. government, RAND Corporation, and the Hudson Institute. Shulsky served as Director of the Office of Special Plans, a unit whose function has been compared to the 1970s Team B exercise. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Shulsky approved OSP memos with talking points about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Shulsky is critical of the traditional intelligence analysis, which is based upon the social-scientific method, and of independent intelligence agencies. Shulsky favors a military intelligence model which can be used support policy as, in Shulsky's words, "truth is not the goal" of intelligence operations, but "victory". Shulsky signed a letter to the Clinton White House on Iraq.- Joichi "Joi" Ito (伊藤 穰一, Itō Jōichi, born June 19, 1966) is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and director of the MIT Media Lab. Ito is a professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT and a visiting professor of law from practice at the Harvard Law School.Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded, among other companies, PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. Ito is the chairman of the board of PureTech Health. Ito is a strategic advisor to Sony Corporation, and a board member of The New York Times Company, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and General Partner of Neoteny Labs. Ito writes a monthly column in the Ideas section of Wired.
- Age: 58
- Birthplace: Kyoto, Keihanshin, Japan
- Steven Best (born December 1955) is an award-winning writer, noted speaker, public intellectual, and seasoned activist with 30 years work in diverse social movements. Best engages the issues of the day such as animal rights, species extinction, ecological crisis, biotechnology, liberation politics, terrorism, mass media and culture, globalization, and capitalist domination. He is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso. Best has published 13 books and over 200 articles and reviews (translated into numerous languages), spoken in nearly two dozen countries, interviewed with media throughout the world, appeared in numerous documentaries, and in 2007 was voted by VegNewsas one of the nations “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.” From Romania to Russia, from Poland to Paris, and from Slovenia to South Africa, Best inspires at a global level and shows what philosophy means in a world in crisis. He is co-author (with UCLA Professor Douglas Kellner) of an award-winning trilogy of postmodern studies (Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogation; The Postmodern Turn: Paradigms Shifts in Art, Theory, and Science; and The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (Guilford Press, 1991, 1997, 2001). More recently, he introduced and co-edited four groundbreaking and bridge-building anthologies: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004); Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth (AK Press, 2006); Academic Repression: Reflections on the Academic-Industrial Complex (AK Press, 2010); and The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination (Rowman & Littlefield 2011). His most recent book is entitled: The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Best’s research and teachings on the crucial topics of the day, along with his controversial positions and high-profile activism has earned him multiple awards, including selection by VegNews Magazine as one of the nations “25 Most Fascinating Vegetarians.” But his passionate advocacy of “total liberation” (integrating struggles to emancipate humans, animals, and the earth into a comprehensive movement for systemic change) has put him under heavy fire as well. Best exemplifies the role of the engaged academic and public intellectual. He has lectured throughout the world, interviewed with global media, and appeared or was featured in numerous documentaries. From Romania to Russia, Poland to Paris, and Slovenia to South Africa, Best inspires and agitates at a global level and shows what philosophy means in a world in crisis.
- Age: 69
- Herbert Simon may refer to: Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001), American political scientist and economist Herbert Simon (real estate) (born 1934), American real estate developer
- Age: Dec. at 84 (1916-2001)
- Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 June 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.In the words of the Swedish Nobel Committee, his writing exhibited "the mixture of rich picaresque novel and subtle analysis of our culture, of entertaining adventure, drastic and tragic episodes in quick succession interspersed with philosophic conversation, all developed by a commentator with a witty tongue and penetrating insight into the outer and inner complications that drive us to act, or prevent us from acting, and that can be called the dilemma of our age." His best-known works include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift and Ravelstein. Bellow was widely regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest authors.Bellow said that of all his characters, Eugene Henderson, of Henderson the Rain King, was the one most like himself. Bellow grew up as an immigrant from Quebec. As Christopher Hitchens describes it, Bellow's fiction and principal characters reflect his own yearning for transcendence, a battle "to overcome not just ghetto conditions but also ghetto psychoses." Bellow's protagonists, in one shape or another, all wrestle with what Albert Corde, the dean in The Dean's December, called "the big-scale insanities of the 20th century." This transcendence of the "unutterably dismal" (a phrase from Dangling Man) is achieved, if it can be achieved at all, through a "ferocious assimilation of learning" (Hitchens) and an emphasis on nobility.
- Age: Dec. at 89 (1915-2005)
- Birthplace: Lachine, Québec, Canada
William Heirens
William George Heirens (November 15, 1928 – March 5, 2012) was an American convicted serial killer who confessed to three murders in 1946. Heirens was called the Lipstick Killer after a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene. At the time of his death, Heirens was reputedly Chicago's longest-serving prisoner, having spent 65 years in prison.He spent the later years of his sentence at the Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Illinois. Though he remained imprisoned until his death, Heirens had recanted his confession and claimed to be a victim of coercive interrogation and police brutality.Charles Einstein wrote a novel called The Bloody Spur about Heirens, published in 1953 which was adapted into the 1956 film While the City Sleeps by Fritz Lang. On March 5, 2012, Heirens died at the age of 83 at the UIC Medical Center from complications arising from diabetes.- Age: Dec. at 83 (1928-2012)
- Birthplace: Evanston, Illinois
- Katharine Burr Blodgett (January 10, 1898 – October 12, 1979) was an American physicist and chemist known for her work on surface chemistry, in particular her invention of "invisible" or nonreflective glass while working at General Electric. She was the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge, in 1926.
- Age: Dec. at 81 (1898-1979)
- Birthplace: Schenectady, New York
Adolfo Diz
EconomistAdolfo César Diz (May 12, 1931 – October 12, 2008) was an Argentine economist who served as President of the Central Bank of Argentina from April 1976 until March 1981.- Age: Dec. at 77 (1931-2008)
- Birthplace: Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Marilu Henner, born as Mary Lucy Denise Henner on April 6, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois, is a celebrated actress, producer, author, and health guru in America. She is of Polish and Greek descent and grew up in the bustling neighborhood of Logan Square. Henner's rise to fame began from her breakthrough role in the iconic TV series Taxi that ran from 1978 to 1983. Her portrayal of Elaine Nardo earned her five Golden Globe nominations, catapulting her to national stardom. Henner moved beyond her acting prowess to showcase her talents in multiple arenas. As an author, she has written many New York Times best-selling books that primarily focus on diet, health, and memory, reflecting her passion for living a holistic lifestyle. Notably, Henner is one of the few individuals who can recall every moment of their life, a rare condition known as Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). Her unique ability has been featured on various news platforms and documentaries, bringing her recognition in the field of cognitive science. Despite her soaring success in Hollywood, Henner has always remained committed to Broadway. She started her career in theater and featured in several productions, including Pal Joey, Chicago, and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. She also competed in the 23rd season of Dancing with the Stars, showcasing her versatility as an entertainer. The multifaceted Henner, with her remarkable acting abilities, best-selling books, and extraordinary memory abilities, continues to inspire and entertain audiences worldwide.
- Age: 72
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Robert Sanderson Mulliken (June 7, 1896 – October 31, 1986) was an American physicist and chemist, primarily responsible for the early development of molecular orbital theory, i.e. the elaboration of the molecular orbital method of computing the structure of molecules. Dr. Mulliken received the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1966. He received the Priestley Medal in 1983.
- Age: Dec. at 90 (1896-1986)
- Birthplace: Newburyport, Massachusetts
- Charles Harting "Chuck" Percy (September 27, 1919 – September 17, 2011) was an American businessman and politician. He was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964. In 1966, he was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois as a Republican; he served for three terms (18 years) until 1985, when he was defeated by Paul Simon. He was mentioned as a GOP presidential hopeful from 1968 through 1988. During his Senate career, Percy concentrated on business and foreign relations.One of his twin daughters, Valerie Percy, was murdered at age 21 in her bedroom in the family home in Kenilworth, Illinois, near Chicago, during his senatorial campaign in 1966. The murder was never solved.
- Age: Dec. at 91 (1919-2011)
- Birthplace: Pensacola, Florida, USA
- After establishing himself as the straight-man half of a popular comic duo with Elaine May in the late 1950s, Mike Nichols became one of the most decorated directors of stage and screen, earning several Tony Awards for his work on Broadway while helming seminal Academy Award-winning films. Though he began his career as in improvisational comedian and gained a degree of popularity with May, Nichols found his greatest success first on Broadway, where he collaborated extensively with Neil Simon to direct "Barefoot in the Park" (1963) and "The Odd Couple" (1965); both of which earned him Tony Awards for Best Director. He soon moved to Hollywood and directed the controversial "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), which broke ground for its use of profanity and frank handling of marriage infidelity, and "The Graduate" (1967), which managed to tap into the feelings of isolation and abandonment by that era's youth. Following a misfire with his adaptation of "Catch-22" (1970), Nichols once again broke ground tackling the subject of sex and relationships with the hit drama, "Carnal Knowledge" (1971). But he soon broke away from Hollywood to focus on the stage, only to return with the acclaimed biopic "Silkwood" (1983), starring Meryl Streep. Following popular hits like "Working Girl" (1988) and "Biloxi Blues" (1988), Nichols' film career hit a precipitous downturn until he directed the surprise hit comedy "The Birdcage" (1996). On the small screen, he found even more success with the acclaimed made-for-cable movie "Wit" (HBO, 2001) and the extraordinary miniseries "Angels in America" (HBO, 2003), both of which earned their share of critical adulation and awards. After a return to big screen form with "Closer" (2004) and "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007), Nichols proved that he was just as viable as he was when he broke new ground for a previous generation. Still active with stage and screen work well into his 80s, Nichols' sudden death on November 19, 2014 at the age of 83 stunned the film and theater community.
- Age: Dec. at 83 (1931-2014)
- Birthplace: Berlin, Germany
- David Mark Rubenstein (born August 11, 1949) is an American financier and philanthropist. He is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment company based in Washington, D.C. He also currently serves as Chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Chairman of the Smithsonian Institution, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and President of The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. According to the Forbes ranking of the wealthiest people in the world, Rubenstein has a net worth of $3 billion.
- Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
- Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing child labor laws in the United States.
- Age: Dec. at 66 (1874-1940)
- Birthplace: Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Jim Neal
Businessperson, Politician, EntrepreneurJames Ellerbe "Daddy" Neal (May 21, 1930 – October 3, 2011) was an American basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Neal, a 6'11" center, played college basketball at Wofford College from 1949 to 1953, where he led the NCAA's small colleges in scoring as a senior at 32.6 points per game. For his career, Neal scored 2,078 points (23.3 per game) and had 1,500 rebounds (16.9). He set numerous school records at Wofford, including most points in a game (57), highest scoring average for a season (32.6 PPG) and highest season rebounding average (26.5) At Wofford, Neal received the nickname "Daddy," a reference to his long, thin arms and legs which students compared to a daddy longlegs spider.Following his graduation from Wofford, Neal was drafted by the Syracuse Nationals with the sixth overall pick of the 1953 NBA Draft. He played one season for the Nationals, averaging 4.7 points and 3.8 rebounds in 67 games. Neal played the next season with the Baltimore Bullets, where he averaged 2.9 points and 3.6 rebounds per game until the franchise folded in November 1954.Neal died on October 3, 2011 in his home in Greer, South Carolina.- Age: 68
- Birthplace: Greensboro, North Carolina
- Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on US efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II (the Manhattan Project), gave a detailed description of the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb, and of several processes for purifying plutonium, to Soviet intelligence. His brother, Edward N. Hall, was a rocket scientist who worked on intercontinental ballistic missiles for the United States government.
- Age: Dec. at 74 (1925-1999)
- Birthplace: Far Rockaway, New York City, New York
Glenway Wescott
NovelistGlenway Wescott (April 11, 1901 – February 22, 1987) was an American poet, novelist and essayist. A figure of the American expatriate literary community in Paris during the 1920s, Wescott was openly gay. His relationship with longtime companion Monroe Wheeler lasted from 1919 until Wescott's death.- Age: Dec. at 85 (1901-1987)
- Birthplace: Kewaskum, Wisconsin
- Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011) was an American playwright. His work, as described by The New York Times, was "earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed." Wilson helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced at the Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from Off-Off-Broadway to Off-Broadway, then Broadway and beyond. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980 and was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist. He was nominated for three Tony Awards and has won a Drama Desk Award and five Obie Awards. Wilson's 1964 short play The Madness of Lady Bright was his first major success and led to further works throughout the 1960s that expressed a variety of social and romantic themes. In 1969, he co-founded the Circle Repertory Company with theatre director Marshall W. Mason. He wrote many plays for the Circle Repertory in the 1970s. His 1973 play The Hot l Baltimore was the company's first major success with both audiences and critics. The Off-Broadway production exceeded 1,000 performances. His play Fifth of July was first produced at Circle Repertory in 1978. He received a Tony Award nomination for its Broadway production, which opened in 1980. A prequel to Fifth of July called Talley's Folly (opened 1979 at Circle Repertory) opened on Broadway before Fifth of July and won Wilson the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and his first Tony nomination. Burn This (1987) was another Broadway success. Wilson also wrote the libretti for several operas.
- Age: Dec. at 73 (1937-2011)
- Birthplace: Lebanon, Missouri
- A celebrated and durable American stage actor whose TV and film appearances have not captured the commanding power he elicits in the theater, Fritz Weaver portrayed both sympathetic and calculatingly villainous characters, often demonstrating an upper-crust bearing made more plausible by the long, thin, pinched appearance of his trademark nose. He is perhaps best known worldwide for his portrayal of Dr. Josef Weiss, the doomed patriarch of a Berlin Jewish family, in the 1978 NBC miniseries "Holocaust."
- Age: Dec. at 90 (1926-2016)
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964) was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult life, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.
- Age: Dec. at 84 (1880-1964)
- Birthplace: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Norman Wong
WriterNorman Wong is an American writer and activist. He is best known for his 1995 short story collection Cultural Revolution, which was one of the first book-length works of LGBT literature ever published by an Asian American writer.- Age: 62
- Birthplace: Honolulu, Hawaii
- In the late 1970s, Larry Wilcox rose to the top of the pop culture heap as the straight-laced California motorcycle officer Jon Baker on the wildly successful "CHiPs" (NBC, 1977-1983). The show, which paired him with Erik Estrada's ultra-macho Frank Poncharello in lightweight, occasionally campy action-drama scenarios, afforded Wilcox a five-year stint in the spotlight, but he left the show in 1982 to pursue a career as a producer. After overseeing the award-winning "Ray Bradbury Theater" (HBO/USA Network, 1985-86/1988-1992), Wilcox moved into a string of ill-defined businesses, which led to his conviction on securities fraud conspiracy in 2010. His sentencing in 2011 was a low point for the well-regarded TV star, whose affable presence on an era-defining program earned him a lifetime of small screen fans.
- Age: 77
- Birthplace: San Diego, California, USA
Alex Hassilev
Alex Hassilev (born in Paris, July 11, 1932) is an American folk musician who was one of the founding members of the group The Limeliters and produced the rock album The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds. He was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He is an actor with a number of film and television appearances to his credit. He is a musician, switching from the guitar to the banjo. He speaks fluent French, Russian and Spanish and has contributed many foreign language songs to the Limeliters' repertoire.- Age: 92
- Birthplace: France, Paris
Paul Rosenfels
Psychologist, WriterPaul Rosenfels (March 21, 1909 in Chicago – 1985 in New York City) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known as one of the first American social scientists to publish about homosexuality as part of the human condition, rather than defining it as an illness or deviation. After leaving the academic field of psychiatry in the 1940s, he developed some of his own thinking and a larger philosophy. He published Homosexuality: The Psychology of the Creative Process in 1971, and other books about his arguments with psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In the 1940s Rosenfels left Chicago and his family, moving to California. He moved to New York City in 1962, where he established a private practice. He devoted himself to developing the foundations of a "science of human nature." In 1973 with Dean Hannotte, he founded the Ninth Street Center in New York City, which provided peer counseling and discussion groups.- Age: Dec. at 76 (1909-1985)
- David Takayoshi Suzuki (born March 24, 1936) is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. Suzuki earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001. Since the mid-1970s, Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen in over 40 countries. He is also well known for criticizing governments for their lack of action to protect the environment. A longtime activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us". The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and Suzuki's Nature Challenge. The Foundation also works on ways to help protect the oceans from large oil spills such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Suzuki has also served as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from 1982 to 1987. Suzuki was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2009. His 2011 book, The Legacy, won the Nautilus Book Award. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 2004, David Suzuki ranked fifth on the list of final nominees in a CBC Television series that asked viewers to select The Greatest Canadian of all time.
- Age: 88
- Birthplace: Vancouver, Canada
- David Brooks (born August 11, 1961) is a Canadian-born American political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times. He has worked as a film critic for The Washington Times, a reporter and later op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception, a contributing editor at Newsweek, and The Atlantic Monthly, and a commentator on NPR and PBS NewsHour..
- Age: 63
- Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Alice Corbin Henderson
Alice Corbin Henderson (April 16, 1881 – July 18, 1949) was an American poet, author and poetry editor.- Age: Dec. at 68 (1881-1949)
- Birthplace: St. Louis, Missouri
- Ernest Everett Just (August 14, 1883 – October 27, 1941) was a pioneering African-American biologist, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is his recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. In his work within marine biology, cytology and parthenogenesis, he advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory setting.
- Age: Dec. at 58 (1883-1941)
- Birthplace: Charleston, South Carolina
- Thomas Sowell (; born June 30, 1930) is an American economist and social theorist who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Sowell was born in North Carolina, but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor's degree, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago. Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He writes from a libertarian conservative perspective, advocating supply-side economics. Sowell has written more than thirty books (a number of which have been reprinted in revised editions), and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient for innovative scholarship which incorporated history, economics and political science.
- Age: 94
- Birthplace: Gastonia, North Carolina
- Stuart McKee Struever (born 1931) is an American archaeologist and anthropologist best known for his contributions to the archaeology of the Woodland Period in the US midwest and for his leadership of archaeology research & education foundations. He was a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University.
- Age: 93
- Birthplace: Lima, Illinois
- William Lyon Mackenzie King (December 17, 1874 – July 22, 1950), also commonly known as Mackenzie King, was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth prime minister of Canada in 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. He is best known for his leadership of Canada throughout the Second World War (1939–1945) when he mobilized Canadian money, supplies and volunteers to support Britain while boosting the economy and maintaining morale on the home front. A Liberal with 21 years and 154 days in office, he was the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history. Trained in law and social work, he was keenly interested in the human condition (as a boy, his motto was "Help those that cannot help themselves"), and played a major role in laying the foundations of the Canadian welfare state.King acceded to the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1919. Taking the helm of a party bitterly torn apart during the First World War, he reconciled factions, unifying the Liberal Party and leading it to victory in the 1921 election. His party was out of office during the harshest days of the Great Depression in Canada, 1930–35; he returned when the economy was on an upswing. He personally handled complex relations with the Prairie Provinces, while his top aides Ernest Lapointe and Louis St. Laurent skillfully met the demands of French Canadians. During the Second World War, he carefully avoided the battles over conscription, patriotism and ethnicity that had divided Canada so deeply in the First World War. Though few major policy innovations took place during his premiership, he was able to synthesize and pass a number of measures that had reached a level of broad national support. Scholars attribute King's long tenure as party leader to his wide range of skills that were appropriate to Canada's needs. He understood the workings of capital and labour. Keenly sensitive to the nuances of public policy, he was a workaholic with a shrewd and penetrating intelligence and a profound understanding of the complexities of Canadian society. A modernizing technocrat who regarded managerial mediation as essential to an industrial society, he wanted his Liberal Party to represent liberal corporatism to create social harmony. King worked to bring compromise and harmony to many competing and feuding elements, using politics and government action as his instrument. He led his party for 29 years, and established Canada's international reputation as a middle power fully committed to world order.King's biographers agree on the personal characteristics that made him distinctive. He lacked the charisma of such contemporaries as Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, or Charles de Gaulle. He lacked a commanding presence or oratorical skill; his best writing was academic, and did not resonate with the electorate. Cold and tactless in human relations, he had many political allies but very few close personal friends. He never married and lacked a hostess whose charm could substitute for his chill. He kept secret his beliefs in spiritualism and use of mediums to stay in contact with departed associates and particularly with his mother, and allowed his intense spirituality to distort his understanding of Adolf Hitler throughout the late 1930s.A survey of scholars in 1997 by Maclean's magazine ranked King first among all Canada's prime ministers, ahead of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As historian Jack Granatstein notes, "the scholars expressed little admiration for King the man but offered unbounded admiration for his political skills and attention to Canadian unity." On the other hand, political scientist Ian Stewart in 2007 found that even Liberal activists have but a dim memory of him.
- Age: Dec. at 75 (1874-1950)
- Birthplace: Guelph, Kitchener, Canada
Allan Pred
Allan Richard Pred (1936 – 2007) was an internationally known American geographer and professor at the University of California at Berkeley He wrote more than 20 books and monographs, translated into seven languages, and over 70 articles and book chapters. Pred was born in the Lukani Iringa then moved to, New York City, in 1936. He enrolled at Antioch College in 1953, at age 16, and graduated first in his class in 1957. He received his Ph.D. in 1962 from the University of Chicago, and then became an Assistant Professor at Berkeley, and was appointed full professor in 1971 at the age of 34. He served as the chair of the UC Berkeley Department of Geography between 1979 and 1988, and was made a Professor of the Graduate School in 2005, the most senior Berkeley position. He met his wife Hjördis, in San Francisco in 1962; they moved between Berkeley and Sweden on a yearly basis, raising bi-lingual children, Michele Pred and Joseph Pred. He has one grandchild, Linnea Allana Morlan Pred. His books are required reading in multiple college courses.- Age: Dec. at 71 (1936-2007)
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler and others, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the second generation of Chicago school of economics, a methodological movement at the University of Chicago's Department of Economics, Law School and Graduate School of Business from the 1940s onward. Several students and young professors who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, Thomas Sowell and Robert Lucas Jr.Friedman's challenges to what he later called "naive Keynesian" theory began with his 1950s reinterpretation of the consumption function. In the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing Keynesian government policies and described his approach (along with mainstream economics) as using "Keynesian language and apparatus" yet rejecting its "initial" conclusions. He theorized that there existed a "natural" rate of unemployment and argued that unemployment below this rate would cause inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was in the long run vertical at the "natural rate" and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation. Friedman promoted an alternative macroeconomic viewpoint known as "monetarism" and argued that a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the preferred policy. His ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the Federal Reserve's response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008.Friedman was an advisor to Republican President Ronald Reagan and Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal intervention. He once stated that his role in eliminating conscription in the United States was his proudest accomplishment. In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax and school vouchers and opposed the war on drugs. His support for school choice led him to found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, later renamed EdChoice.Friedman's works include monographs, books, scholarly articles, papers, magazine columns, television programs and lectures and cover a broad range of economic topics and public policy issues. His books and essays have had global influence, including in former communist states. A survey of economists ranked Friedman as the second-most popular economist of the 20th century following only John Maynard Keynes and The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century ... possibly of all of it".
- Age: Dec. at 94 (1912-2006)
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, also sometimes Moseley-Braun (born August 16, 1947), is an American diplomat, politician, and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She was the first female African-American Senator, the first African-American U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party, the first woman to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in an election, and the first female Senator from Illinois. She was the only female U.S. Senator from Illinois until Tammy Duckworth who became the U.S. Senator from Illinois in January 2017. From 1999 until 2001, she was the United States Ambassador to New Zealand. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Following the public announcement by Richard M. Daley that he would not seek re-election, in November 2010, Braun began her campaign for Mayor of Chicago. The former Senator placed fourth in a field of six candidates, losing the February 22, 2011, election to Rahm Emanuel.
- Age: 77
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Álvaro Alfredo Magaña Borja (October 8, 1925 in Ahuachapán, El Salvador – July 10, 2001) was the President of El Salvador from 1982 to 1984.
- Age: Dec. at 75 (1925-2001)
- Birthplace: Ahuachapán, El Salvador
- David Director Friedman (born February 12, 1945) is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, and libertarian theorist. He is known for his textbook writings on microeconomics and the libertarian theory of anarcho-capitalism, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom. Besides The Machinery of Freedom, he has authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996), and Future Imperfect (2008).
- Age: 80
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Robert W. Lane, served as Chief Executive Officer of Deere & Company from 2000 to 2009 and retired as the Chairman of the board in February 2010. During his tenure the revenues of the company more than doubled. He is currently serving on the boards of The Northern Trust Company, General Electric Company, BMW AG and Verizon Communications. He was ranked 10th by Forbes Magazine’s Top CEOs based on compensation in 2009.
- Age: 75
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
- Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his discovery, with collaborator Emilio Segrè, of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle.
- Age: Dec. at 85 (1920-2006)
- Birthplace: California
- Andrea Jean James (born January 16, 1967) is an American transgender rights activist, film producer, and blogger.
- Age: 58
- John Harold Johnson (January 19, 1918 – August 8, 2005) was an American businessman and publisher. Johnson was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company which is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Johnson's Ebony (1945) and Jet (1951–2014) magazines are among the most influential African-American businesses in media beginning in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400. In 1987, Johnson was named Black Enterprise Entrepreneur of the year.
- Age: Dec. at 87 (1918-2005)
- Birthplace: Arkansas City, Arkansas
Phillip D. Cagan
EconomistPhillip David Cagan (April 30, 1927 – June 15, 2012) was an American scholar and author. He was Professor of Economics Emeritus at Columbia University.- Age: Dec. at 85 (1927-2012)
- Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
- Ira Sprague Bowen (December 21, 1898 – February 6, 1973) was an American physicist and astronomer. In 1927 he discovered that nebulium was not really a chemical element but instead doubly ionized oxygen.
- Age: Dec. at 74 (1898-1973)
- Birthplace: Seneca Falls, New York
- Gangadharrao Soundalyarao "G. S." Maddala (May 21, 1933 – June 4, 1999) was an Indian American economist, mathematician, and teacher, known for his contributions in the field of econometrics and for the textbooks he authored in this field.
- Age: Dec. at 66 (1933-1999)
- Birthplace: British Raj
- Jon Stevens Corzine (born January 1, 1947) is an American financial executive and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey from 2001 to 2006 and the 54th Governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously worked at Goldman Sachs; after leaving politics, he was CEO of MF Global from 2010 to 2011.
- Age: 78
- Birthplace: Taylorville, Illinois, USA
- Walter Sydney Adams (December 20, 1876 – May 11, 1956) was an American astronomer.
- Age: Dec. at 79 (1876-1956)
- Birthplace: Antioch, Syria
- Hailing from Boston, Misha Collins garnered his first acting work primarily with small roles in various theatrical films and television programs, including the short-lived Western series "Legacy," an uncredited bit in Barry Levinson's music-infused coming-of-age drama "Liberty Heights," and the supernatural fantasy show "Charmed." A turn in the widely talked-about institution drama "Girl, Interrupted" primed Collins for his big break on the hit FOX suspense show "24," playing a deadly assassin for a number of episodes during the show's first season. In 2006, he stuck with the successful killer motif to star as murderer Paul Bernardo in the controversial docudrama "Karla," based on the true case of Bernardo and his girlfriend Karla Homolka, who raped and murdered three teenage girls (including Homolka's sister). The film generated plenty of criticism in Canada where the murders took place. Despite the controversy, Collins is arguably best known for his role as the deadly serious, deadpan angel Castiel on the hit dark fantasy show "Supernatural."
- Age: 50
- Birthplace: Massachusetts, USA
Andrew Alper
Andrew Alper was the President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC).- Roger Wolcott Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work with split-brain research. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Sperry as the 44th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Age: Dec. at 80 (1913-1994)
- Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
- Frances Fox Piven (born October 10, 1932) is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982.Piven is known equally for her contributions to social theory and for her social activism. A veteran of the war on poverty and subsequent welfare-rights protests both in New York City and on the national stage, she has been instrumental in formulating the theoretical underpinnings of those movements. Over the course of her career, she has served on the boards of the ACLU and the Democratic Socialists of America, and has also held offices in several professional associations, including the American Political Science Association and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Previously, she had been a member of the political science faculty at Boston University.
- Age: 92
- Birthplace: Calgary, Canada
- Edith Abbott (September 26, 1876 – July 28, 1957) was an American economist, social worker, educator, and author. Abbott was born in Grand Island, Nebraska. Edith Abbott was a pioneer in the profession of social work with an educational background in economics. She was a leading activist in social reform with the ideals that humanitarianism needed to be embedded in education. Abbott was also in charge of implementing social work studies to the graduate level. Though she was met with resistance on her work with social reform at the University of Chicago, she ultimately was successful and was elected as the school's dean in 1924, making her the first female dean in the United States. Abbott was foremost an educator and saw her work as a combination of legal studies and humanitarian work which shows in her social security legislation. She is known as an economist who pursued implementing social work at the graduate level. Her younger sister was Grace Abbott. Social work will never become a profession—except through the professional schools The Edith Abbott Memorial Library, in Grand Island, Nebraska, is named after her.
- Age: Dec. at 80 (1876-1957)
- Birthplace: Grand Island, Nebraska
- Andrew Zawacki (May 22, 1972) is an American poet, critic, editor, and translator. He was a 2016 Howard Foundation Fellow in Poetry. Zawacki's first book, By Reason of Breakings, won the 2001 University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series, chosen by Forrest Gander.Work from his second book, Anabranch, was awarded the 2002 Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. The volume also includes his 2001 chapbook Masquerade, selected by C.D. Wright to receive the 2002 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award."Georgia," a long poem opening Zawacki's third book, Petals of Zero Petals of One, won the 1913 Prize and was published in 1913: a journal of forms, with short introductions by Peter Gizzi and Cole Swensen. He has held fellowships from the Collège International des Traducteurs Littéraires and the Résidence internationale Ville de Paris / Institut Français aux Récollets in France, the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, Le Château de Lavigny in Switzerland, the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in Austria, the University of Paris IV—La Sorbonne in France, the Slovenian Writers' Association in Slovenia, the Millay Colony, the Saltonstall Colony, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Zawacki has coedited the international literary magazine Verse with Brian Henry since 1995 and has taught at the University of Georgia since 2005.
- Age: 52
- Aza Raskin (born February 1, 1984) is an American interface designer. He is the son of human-computer interface expert and initiator of the Macintosh project at Apple, Jef Raskin. Raskin has been noted for continuing his father's work in project Archy, for working as head of user experience at Mozilla Labs and lead designer for Firefox, and for his participation in various start-up companies. He is one of the cofounders of the Center for Humane Technology.
- Age: 41
- Birthplace: California
- Bernard A. Galler (October 3, 1928 in Chicago – September 4, 2006 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was an American mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Michigan who was involved in the development of large-scale operating systems and computer languages including the MAD programming language and the Michigan Terminal System operating system.He attended the University of Chicago where he earned a B.Sc. in mathematics at the University of Chicago (1947), followed by a M.Sc. from UCLA and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1955), advised by Paul Halmos and Marshall Stone. He joined the mathematics department at the University of Michigan (1955) where he taught the first programming course (1956) using an IBM 704. Galler helped to develop the computer language called the Michigan Algorithm Decoder (1959-) in use at several universities. He formed the Communication Sciences dept (1965), renamed Computer Sciences (CS), which became the Computer and Communications (CCS) dept (1984), and Computer Science Department in the 70s, from which he retired in 1994. His class developed the realtime course scheduling program called Computer Registration Involving Student Participation (CRISP) which allowed students to register for courses without waiting in long lines. The University used the CRISP application for over fifteen years. From 1968 to 1970, Prof. Galler was the President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He was the founding editor of the journal IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (1979–87). He was also the President of the Software Patent Institute (1992). For fifteen years, he served as an expert witness in numerous important legal cases around the country involving computer software issues. He was married to Enid Harris, played violin in several orchestras and chamber groups, co-founded the Ypsilanti Youth Orchestra (2001) for children whose schools did not have string music education. He was president of the Orchestra Board at the University of Michigan and a member of the Ann Arbor chapter of Rotary International. He died from pulmonary embolism.The Bernard A. Galler Fellowship Fund has been established at the University of Michigan Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to "attract and support outstanding graduate students pursuing an advanced degree in computer science."
- Age: Dec. at 77 (1928-2006)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- John "Jack" Gamble Kirkwood (May 30, 1907, Gotebo, Oklahoma – August 9, 1959, New Haven, Connecticut) was a noted chemist and physicist, holding faculty positions at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, California Institute of Technology, and Yale University.
- Age: Dec. at 52 (1907-1959)
- Birthplace: Gotebo, Oklahoma
- John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General (2001–2005), in the George W. Bush Administration. He later founded The Ashcroft Group, a Washington D.C. lobbying firm.Ashcroft previously served as Attorney General of Missouri (1976–1985), and as the 50th Governor of Missouri (1985–1993), having been elected for two consecutive terms in succession (a historical first for a Republican candidate in the state), and he also served as a U.S. Senator from Missouri (1995–2001). He had early appointments in Missouri state government and was mentored by John Danforth. He has written several books about political and moral issues. His son, Jay Ashcroft, is also a politician, serving as Secretary of State of Missouri since January, 2017.
- Age: 82
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Norman Maclean
Screenwriter, Author, WriterNorman Fitzroy Maclean (December 23, 1902 – August 2, 1990) was an American author and scholar noted for his books A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976) and Young Men and Fire (1992).- Age: Dec. at 87 (1902-1990)
- Birthplace: Clarinda, Iowa
Randolph Cohen
EconomistRandolph Baer Cohen (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American financial economist and MBA Class of 1975 Senior Lecturer of Entrepreneurial Management at Harvard Business School.- Age: 59
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Thomas Pritzker (born June 6, 1950) is an American billionaire heir, businessman and philanthropist. A member of the Pritzker family, he is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Pritzker Organization (TPO), which manages the various Pritzker family business assets, and the executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation.
- Age: 74
- Kintaro Hayakawa (June 10, 1886 – November 23, 1973), known professionally as Sessue Hayakawa, was a Japanese actor. He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the silent film era of the 1910s and 1920s. Hayakawa was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve stardom as a leading man in the United States and Europe. His "broodingly handsome" good looks and typecasting as a sexually dominant villain made him a heartthrob among American women during a time of racial discrimination, and he became one of the first male sex symbols of Hollywood.After being expelled from the Japanese naval academy and surviving a suicide attempt at 18, Hayakawa attended the University of Chicago, where he studied political economics and quarterbacked the school's football team. Upon graduating, he traveled to Los Angeles in order to board a scheduled ship back to Japan, but decided to try out acting in Little Tokyo. There, Hayakawa impressed Hollywood figures and was signed on to star in The Typhoon (1914). He made his breakthrough in The Cheat (1915), and thereafter became famous for his roles as a forbidden lover. Hayakawa was one of the highest paid stars of his time, earning $5,000 per week in 1915, and $2 million per year through his own production company from 1918 to 1921.Hayakawa's popularity and sex appeal ("his most rabid fan base was white women") unsettled many segments of American society which were filled with feelings of the Yellow Peril. With two World Wars taking place throughout his career, and rising anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, the types of roles that he usually played were gradually "taken over by other actors who were not as threatening as Hayakawa in terms of race and sex". Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922 and worked in Japanese and European cinema for many years before making his Hollywood comeback in Tokyo Joe (1949). Of his talkies, Hayakawa is probably best known for his role as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Hayakawa starred in over 80 feature films, and three of his films (The Cheat, The Dragon Painter, and The Bridge on the River Kwai) stand in the United States National Film Registry.
- Age: Dec. at 84 (1889-1973)
- Birthplace: Chikura, Japan
- Jackie Goldberg is an American politician and teacher, and a member of the Democratic Party. She is a governing board member for the Los Angeles School Board - District 5.
- Age: 80
- Mainbocher is a fashion label founded by the American couturier Main Rousseau Bocher (October 24, 1890 – December 27, 1976), also known as Mainbocher (pronounced "Maine-Bocker"). Established in 1929, the house of Mainbocher successfully operated in Paris (1929–1939), and then in New York (1940–1971).
- Age: Dec. at 86 (1890-1976)
- One of the leading black film actors of the 1960s and 70s, Brock Peters was possessed of one deepest, richest voices in show business, and distinguished himself with a long series of memorable and moving performances, most notably opposite Gregory Peck as the unjustly accused defendent in the film version of novelist Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962).
- Age: Dec. at 78 (1927-2005)
- Birthplace: New York, New York, USA
- Alexander "Alexi" Giannoulias ( jə-NOO-lee-əs; born March 16, 1976) is an American financier and politician who served as Illinois Treasurer from 2007 to 2011. A Democrat, Giannoulias defeated Republican candidate State Senator Christine Radogno in November 2006 with 54 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democrat to hold the office in 12 years and, at the age of 30, the youngest state treasurer in the nation.On July 26, 2009, Giannoulias announced his candidacy in the 2010 election for the seat in the United States Senate held by Roland Burris. Burris, who was appointed by Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama following Obama's election as President of the United States, chose not to seek election. Giannoulias won the Democratic primary on February 2, 2010, then faced Republican Mark Kirk as well as Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones and Libertarian Michael Labno in the general election in November 2010. Kirk narrowly won the election.In recent years, Giannoulias has mostly stepped back from public life, currently serving as Senior Director of BNY Mellon Wealth Management. On June 26, 2018, he was confirmed to the Chicago Public Library Board, marking his first venture back into public service since leaving the Treasurer's office.
- Age: 48
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Anthony H. Cordesman
ProfessorAnthony H. Cordesman (born August 1, 1939) holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and is a national security analyst on a number of global conflicts.- Age: 85
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Justine Cassell
Justine Cassell (born March 19, 1960) is an American professor and researcher interested in human-human conversation, human-computer interaction, and storytelling. Since August 2010 she has been on the faculty of the Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII).- Age: 64
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Milton Sills was an actor who had a successful Hollywood career. Sills kickstarted his acting career in various films such as "The Deep Purple" (1916), "The Eyes of Youth" (1919) and "The Furnace" (1920). He also appeared in "Miss Lulu Bett" (1921), "The Great Moment" (1921) and "Borderland" (1922). He kept working in film throughout the twenties, starring in "The Marriage Chance" (1922), "Adam's Rib" (1923) and "Flaming Youth" (1923). He also appeared in the Boardman Eleanor drama "Souls For Sale" (1923), "The Last Hour" (1923) and "The Sea Hawk" (1924). In the latter half of his career, he tackled roles in "As Man Desires" (1925), "Paradise" (1926) and "The Sea Tiger" (1927). He also appeared in "The Barker" (1928), "His Captive Woman" (1929) and "Man Trouble" (1930). Sills more recently acted in "The Sea Wolf" (1930). Sills was married to Doris Kenyon. Sills passed away in September 1930 at the age of 48.
- Age: Dec. at 48 (1882-1930)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Gavin Harvey is President of Stamford, CT-based VERSUS. In this capacity, he oversees the networks day-to-day programming, production, marketing, finance and sales operations, while directing the overall strategic vision.
Donald Hamilton
WriterDonald Bengtsson Hamilton (March 24, 1916 – November 20, 2006) was an American writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally spy fiction, but also crime fiction and westerns, such as The Big Country. He is best known for his long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a secret American government agency. The noted critic Anthony Boucher wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic hard realism of Dashiell Hammett; and his stories are as compelling, and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now being told."- Age: Dec. at 90 (1916-2006)
- Birthplace: Uppsala, Sweden
- Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing. He is often noted for his book Rules for Radicals (1971). In the course of nearly four decades of political organizing, Alinsky received much criticism, but he also gained praise from many public figures. His organizing skills were focused on improving the living conditions of poor communities across the United States. In the 1950s, he began turning his attention to improving conditions in the black ghettos, beginning with Chicago's and later traveling to ghettos in California, Michigan, New York City, and a dozen other "trouble spots". In the 1960s, his ideas were adapted by some U.S. college students and other young counterculture-era organizers, who used them as part of their strategies for organizing on campus and beyond. In 1970, Time magazine wrote that "It is not too much to argue that American democracy is being altered by Alinsky's ideas." Conservative author William F. Buckley Jr. said in 1966 that Alinsky was "very close to being an organizational genius".
- Age: Dec. at 63 (1909-1972)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Jason Shaw
ModelJason M. Shaw is American fashion model and actor. He was the spokesmodel of fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger from 1998 - 2003. Shaw graduated from the University of Chicago in 1995 with a degree in History, where he was a member of the men's basketball team. Jason quickly moved to New York City, and signed with Wilhelmina Models. He is also signed to Public Image Worldwide, Nous Model Management in Los Angeles, Why Not Model Agency in Milan, Italy, and Success Models in Paris, Jason is also an actor. He appeared three times in the supernatural dramedy Charmed as Piper Halliwell's date, Greg. The episodes were Chris-Crossed, I Dream of Phoebe and The Last Temptation of Christy. He also appeared in the direct DVD movie The Hillz Jason is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. His father John C. Shaw Jr. is former President and Co-CEO of Jefferies & Co. Jason has also modelled for Iceberg, Karl Lagerfeld, and Lord & Taylor. He currently lives in Hollywood.- Age: 51
- Birthplace: USA, Chicago, Illinois
- Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. She starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in the early talkie musical, Playboy of Paris (1930). She starred in the film An American Tragedy (1931) in a role later recreated by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1951 retitled remake, A Place in the Sun. She also had a prominent role in the classic 1943 Val Lewton psychological horror film I Walked With a Zombie.
- Age: Dec. at 94 (1909-2004)
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, USA, California
- Paul Butterfield worked on a variety of projects during his entertainment career. Butterfield worked on a variety of projects during his early entertainment career, including "Steelyard Blues" (1973) starring Jane Fonda and "Bonnie Raitt and Paul Butterfield" (PBS, 1974-75). Later, Butterfield acted in "Saturday Night Live" (1975-), the documentary "The Last Waltz" (1978) with Bob Dylan and "A Blues Session: B.B. King & Friends" (Cinemax, 1987-88). Butterfield's music was most recently featured in "The Blues" (2003-04).
- Age: Dec. at 44 (1942-1987)
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois, USA
- John Warwick Montgomery is a noted lawyer, professor, Lutheran theologian, and prolific author living in France. He was born October 18, 1931, in Warsaw, New York, United States. He is Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Wisconsin, and continues to work as a barrister specializing in religious freedom cases in international Human Rights law. He is chiefly noted for his major contributions as a writer, lecturer and public debater in the field of Christian apologetics. Since 2007 he is Emeritus Professor at University of Bedfordshire, England, where from 1995–2007 he held a full professorship in law and humanities. From 2007-2014, he was the "Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy and Christian Thought" at Patrick Henry College. He is also the director of the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism & Human Rights, Strasbourg, France, and is the editor of the theological online journal Global Journal of Classical Theology.
- Age: 93
- Birthplace: Warsaw, New York
- Victor Niederhoffer (born December 10, 1943) is a hedge fund manager, champion squash player, bestselling author and statistician.
- Age: 81
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Martin David Kamen (August 27, 1913, Toronto – August 31, 2002) was an American chemist who, together with Sam Ruben, co-discovered the synthesis of the isotope carbon-14 on February 27, 1940, at the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Berkeley.
- Age: Dec. at 89 (1913-2002)
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Rachel Fuller Brown (November 23, 1898 – January 14, 1980) was a chemist best known for her long-distance collaboration with microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen in developing the first useful antifungal antibiotic, nystatin, while doing research for the Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health. Brown received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her Ph.D from the University of Chicago. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.Nystatin, still produced today under various trade names, not only cures a variety of potentially devastating fungal infections, but has also been used to combat Dutch Elm disease in trees and to restore artwork damaged by water and mold.
- Age: Dec. at 81 (1898-1980)
- Birthplace: Springfield, Massachusetts
Arnulfo Arias
PhysicianArnulfo Arias Madrid (15 August 1901 – 10 August 1988) was a Panamanian politician, doctor, and writer who served as the President of Panama from 1940 to 1941, again from 1949 to 1951, and finally for eleven days in October 1968.- Age: Dec. at 86 (1901-1988)
- Birthplace: Penonomé, Coclé, Panama
Charles O. Paullin
HistorianCharles Oscar Paullin (20 July 1869 – 1 September 1944) was an important naval historian, who made a significant early contribution to the administrative history of the United States Navy.- Age: Dec. at 75 (1869-1944)
- Francisco Gil-White is an evolutionary and sociocultural anthropologist who teaches Organizational Behavior, Knowledge Management, and The Political History of the West and Antisemitism at ITAM, in Mexico City. He also teaches Systems and Evolutionary Thinking at Universidad del Medio Ambiente. He was Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2006 and lecturer at the Solomon Asch Centre for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict. He was born in Chicago and raised in Mexico City. His father is Francisco Gil Díaz, Secretary of Finance and Public Credit in the cabinet of Vicente Fox. He holds a Masters Degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Biological and Cultural Anthropology from UCLA. Francisco Gil-White’s social scientific approach is broadly interdisciplinary and merges cultural and biological perspectives on human behavior. At the University of Chicago he obtained a master’s degree in social sciences that was flexible enough for him to also get training in population genetics and evolutionary theory.
- Age: 55
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- John S. Watson is executive vice president of Chevron Corporation. He is responsible for business development, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning and the Project Resources Company, which supports the development of major capital projects within Chevron.
- Age: 69
- Birthplace: California
Arshia Sattar
Arshia Sattar (born 1960) is an Indian translator, facilitator, author, and director. Sattar obtained her PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 1990. Her doctoral advisor was Wendy Doniger, a renowned Indologist. Her abridged translations of the epic Sanskrit texts, Kathasaritsagara and Valmiki's Ramayana have both been published by Penguin Books. Her book reviews and articles appear regularly in The Times of India, The Illustrated Weekly of India and the Indian Review of Books. She has also worked with documentary film and theatre. Most recently, she taught Indian Studies at the Mahindra United World College of India in Pune for five years. She currently works as a freelance writer and researcher. She was previously the programming director at OpenSpace, an NGO committed to promoting awareness of issues such as globalization. She has also been a visiting lecturer at Middlebury College, teaching courses on Indian cinema and cultural politics. In 2005, Sattar was the program director for the Rangashankara theater festival in Bengaluru. She also sometimes lectures at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, and the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore, India where she gives a week-long class on Indian narrative. Arshia Sattar, along with G W Gibson co-founded the Sangam House Writing residency in 2008. This is the first and only fully funded writer's residency in India.- Age: 65
- Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames (; born May 26, 1941) is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer who committed espionage against the U.S. by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. At the time of his arrest, Ames had compromised more highly-classified CIA assets than any other officer in history until Robert Hanssen's arrest seven years later in 2001.
- Age: 83
- Birthplace: River Falls, Wisconsin
- Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization.Arjun Appadurai was born in 1949 and raised in Bombay, India, and went to the United States where he obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He was the former University of Chicago professor of anthropology and South Asian Languages and Civilizations, Humanities Dean of the University of Chicago, director of the city center and globalization at Yale University, he was a senior tutor at New College of the Global Initiative, and the Education and Human Development Studies professor at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture. Arjun Appadurai has presided over Chicago globalization plan, as many public and private organizations (such as the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, UNESCO, the World Bank, etc.) consultant and long-term concern issues of globalization, modernity and ethnic conflicts. "Some of his most important works include Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule (1981), Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy (1990), of which an expanded version is found in Modernity at Large (1996), and Fear of Small Numbers (2006). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997."Appadurai held many scholarships and grants, and has received numerous academic honors, including the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (California) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, as well as individual research fellowship from the Open Society Institute (New York). He was elected Arts and Sciences in 1997, the American Academy of Sciences. In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate Erasmus University in the Netherlands. He also served as a consultant or adviser, extensive public and private organizations, including many large foundations (Ford, MacArthur and Rockefeller); the UNESCO; UNDP; World Bank; the US National Endowment for the Humanities; National Science Foundation; and Infosys Foundation. He currently serves as the Asian Art Program Advisory Committee members in the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, and the forum D 'Avignon Paris Scientific Advisory Board.
- Age: 76
- Birthplace: Mumbai, India
Wes Raffel
Wes joined ATV in 1999 and concentrates on investments in the internet infrastructure and data networking markets. Since January 2000, Mr. Raffel has been a Managing Director of Advanced Technology Ventures. His representative investments include Apprion, Calisolar, CaseCentral, Omneon Video Networks, NeoScale, Redline Networks (acquired by Juniper Networks NASDAQ: JNPR), and Sub-One Technology. Wes Raffel has served as a member of the Omneon board of directors since November 2002. Prior to ATV, Wes served as Vice President of Sales and General Manager at Informix Software where he was last responsible for the Company's Web and e-commerce business. He held positions as acting CEO and Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at AssureNet Pathways, which was acquired by Axent Technologies. He also was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Global Village Communications, where he grew revenue from zero to over $100 million in three years. Wes spent nearly 10 years of his career with 3Com in various sales and marketing roles, lastly driving the rapid growth of its non-European international business as the Vice President of Intercontinental Operations. He holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.A., Cum Laude, from Harvard College.- Peter J. Wagner (born 27 September 1964) is a paleontologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from The University of Chicago in 1995, conducted postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian Institution, served as a curator at the Field Museum of Natural History from 1996 through 2007, and was at the Smithsonian Institution from 2007 through 2017. He was given the Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society in 2004. His research focuses on macroevolution and paleoecology, especially as regards the systematics, evolutionary dynamics, morphology, and distribution of Paleozoic Molluscs. He has published extensively in such journals as Paleobiology, Systematic Biology, and Science and is a contributor to the Paleobiology Database.
- Age: 60
Stephen Wizner
Stephen Wizner is the William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He also has a Special Appointment as the Sackler Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University.Beardsley Ruml
EconomistBeardsley Ruml (5 November 1894 – 19 April 1960) was an American statistician, economist, philanthropist, planner, businessman and man of affairs in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father, Wentzle Ruml, was a country doctor. His mother, Salome Beardsley Ruml, was a hospital superintendent. He received a BA from Dartmouth College in 1915 and a Ph.D. in psychology and education from the University of Chicago in 1917. On August 28, 1917 he married Lois Treadwell; they had three children. A pioneer statistician, in 1918 he helped design aptitude and intelligence tests for the U.S. Army. Ruml viewed society as composed of groups whose traits could be measured and ranked on a scale of normality and deviance. From 1922-29 he directed the fellowship program of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, focusing on support for quantitative social and behavioral science. He was an advisor to President Herbert Hoover especially on farm issues. In 1931 he became dean of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago—a center for quantitative research. He was not popular with the faculty and in 1934 Ruml became an executive of R. H. Macy & Company, parent company of the department store, rising to chairman in 1945. He also served as a director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (1937–1947), and was its chairman from 1941 until 1946; he was active at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944) that established the international monetary system. He was active in New Deal planning agencies but their plans never saw fruition. In the summer of 1942 Ruml proposed that the U.S. Treasury start collecting income taxes through a withholding, pay-as-you-go, system. He proposed an abatement on the previous year's taxes, making up the revenue by immediately collecting on the current year's taxes. In 1943 Congress adopted the withholding system. In 1945, Ruml made a famous speech to the ABA, asserting that since the end of the gold standard, "Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete". The real purposes of taxes were: to "stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar", to "express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income", "in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups" and to "isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security". This is seen as a forerunner of functional finance or chartalism. Ruml wrote several books and essays, including "The Interest Rate Problem," "Memo to a college trustee: A report on financial and structural problems of the liberal college," "Government, Business, and Values," and "Tomorrow's Business." Ruml died April 19, 1960, in Danbury, Connecticut.- Age: Dec. at 65 (1894-1960)
Arthur W. Hummel, Jr.
Arthur William Hummel Jr. (Chinese: 恒安石; pinyin: Héng Ānshí; birth name Arthur Millbourne Hummel) (June 1, 1920 – February 6, 2001) was a United States diplomat.- Age: Dec. at 80 (1920-2001)
- Birthplace: Shanxi, China
- Theodore H. "Ted" Frank (born December 14, 1968), is an American lawyer, activist, and legal writer, based in Washington, D.C. He is the counsel of record and petitioner in Frank v. Gaos, the first Supreme Court case to deal with the issue of cy pres in class action settlements; he is one of the few Supreme Court attorneys ever to argue his own case. He wrote the vetting report of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin for the John McCain campaign in the 2008 presidential election. He founded the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) in 2009; it temporarily merged with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2015, but as of 2019 CCAF is now part of the new Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a free-market nonprofit public-interest law firm founded by Frank and his CCAF colleague Melissa Holyoak. The New York Times calls him the "leading critic of abusive class-action settlements"; the Wall Street Journal has referred to him as "a leading tort-reform advocate" and praised his work exposing dubious practices by plaintiffs' attorneys in class actions.Frank graduated from Brandeis University in 1991, and the University of Chicago Law School in 1994 with a Juris Doctor. A litigator from 1995 to 2005, and a former clerk for Frank H. Easterbrook on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Frank was a director and fellow of the Legal Center for the Public Interest at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He was an adjunct fellow at Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy, where he was editor of the Institute's web magazine, PointofLaw.com. He was on the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society's Litigation Practice Group and contributed to conservative legal weblogs, and, as of 2008, was a member of the American Law Institute.
- Age: 56
- Jules C. Stein (April 26, 1896 – April 29, 1981) was an American physician and businessman who co-founded Music Corporation of America (MCA).
- Age: Dec. at 85 (1896-1981)
- Birthplace: South Bend, Indiana
