The first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby, Diane Crump, has died.She was 77.”Mom passed away peacefully tonight. She ended her life surrounded by friends and family. Thank you for being the best support system. We have been truly blessed by your generosity and kindness. I hope my mom’s legacy of following dreams and helping others continues through those that were touched by her amazing life,” said Crump’s daughter, Della Payne, in a GoFundMe post on New Year’s Day.In the player up top: Diane Crump’s Kentucky Derby boots on display at Kentucky Derby MuseumCrump had been battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.For the first 95 years of the Kentucky Derby’s existence, only male jockeys were allowed to compete. But that all changed in 1970 when Crump became the first woman to ride in the Derby.She received her jockey license just one year prior and would go on to finish 15th in the 96th Run for the Roses.Through 1,682 starts, Crump amassed 228 wins and collected more than $1.2 million in earnings during her jockeying career.“Diane Crump was an iconic trailblazer who admirably fulfilled her childhood dreams. As the first female to ride professionally at a major Thoroughbred racetrack in 1969 and to become the first female to ride in the Kentucky Derby one year later, she will forever be respected and fondly remembered in horse racing lore. The entire Churchill Downs family extends our condolences to her family and friends,” Churchill Downs said in a statement.Following her career as a jockey, Crump started Diane Crump Equine Sales as a way to connect buyers and owners in the sporthorse world. She also volunteered at hospitals and nursing homes with her dachshunds to provide animal-assisted therapy.
The first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby, Diane Crump, has died.
She was 77.
“Mom passed away peacefully tonight. She ended her life surrounded by friends and family. Thank you for being the best support system. We have been truly blessed by your generosity and kindness. I hope my mom’s legacy of following dreams and helping others continues through those that were touched by her amazing life,” said Crump’s daughter, Della Payne, in a GoFundMe post on New Year’s Day.
In the player up top: Diane Crump’s Kentucky Derby boots on display at Kentucky Derby Museum
Crump had been battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
For the first 95 years of the Kentucky Derby’s existence, only male jockeys were allowed to compete. But that all changed in 1970 when Crump became the first woman to ride in the Derby.
She received her jockey license just one year prior and would go on to finish 15th in the 96th Run for the Roses.
Through 1,682 starts, Crump amassed 228 wins and collected more than $1.2 million in earnings during her jockeying career.
“Diane Crump was an iconic trailblazer who admirably fulfilled her childhood dreams. As the first female to ride professionally at a major Thoroughbred racetrack in 1969 and to become the first female to ride in the Kentucky Derby one year later, she will forever be respected and fondly remembered in horse racing lore. The entire Churchill Downs family extends our condolences to her family and friends,” Churchill Downs said in a statement.
Following her career as a jockey, Crump started Diane Crump Equine Sales as a way to connect buyers and owners in the sporthorse world. She also volunteered at hospitals and nursing homes with her dachshunds to provide animal-assisted therapy.
A woman who was found dead in San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel on New Year’s Day has been identified as Victoria Jones, daughter of actor Tommy Lee Jones, officials said.
Around 3:15 a.m. Thursday, police were called to the hotel on Mason Street on reports of a person who was deceased. At the scene, officers met with medics who declared an adult woman dead at the scene.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to CBS News Bay Area Friday that the woman has been identified as the 34-year-old and that her legal next of kin have been notified.
Tommy Lee Jones and Victoria Jones attend the red carpet of the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival at Roppongi Hills on October 25, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan.
Ken Ishii/Getty Images
Authorities did not release additional information about her death. CBS News Bay Area has reached out to Jones’ representatives for comment.
Victoria was the daughter of Jones and his second wife, Kimberlea Cloughley. She had made several appearances in films as a child, including a role in “Men In Black II”, which also starred her father.
George Walker photographed with his wife, Elizabeth, around 2021. The beloved high school teacher and accomplished runner, who died this week at 64, showed extraordinary grace and dedication till the end.
Courtesy of the Walker family
As an accomplished distance runner who figured he logged some 120,000 miles in his lifetime, George Walker’s biggest claim to fame was shocking the competition with an underdog win at the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon. As a beloved teacher at Independence High School in Charlotte for more than 27 years, he mastered the gift of gab in the classroom, where he made lasting impressions on legions of students.
Walker loved both running and teaching with all his heart, and that’s why his wife, Elizabeth, said “there couldn’t be a worse disease” — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), which over time robbed him of his ability to move and speak — “for someone like George to have.”
George Walker died Friday at Atrium Health Hospice & Palliative Care Union in Monroe after a roughly two-year battle, surrounded by family. He was 64.
He had, of course, been thinking about this day for a long time.
George Walker was diagnosed with ALS in May 2024, but had been experiencing symptoms for several months before that. Courtesy of the Walker family
In an interview with The Charlotte Observer in his bedroom on Nov. 10, Walker was able to manage just a handful of words at a time between labored breaths, in a weakened, raspy voice. But he gave a clear-eyed answer regarding his imminent passing: “I’ve accepted it. We talk about it openly. It’s not taboo. It’s 100% terminal, so it’s not like cancer, where you can fight.” He added that he had “no regrets” about the life he lived. “I don’t think there’s one person on this earth who hates me.”
And in the end, he was ready — as Elizabeth puts it, “for the next great adventure.”
In fact, George was very likely as prepared as he could have possibly been.
An auspicious (and sneaky) marathon debut
A native of the Charlotte area by way of Charleston, S.C., George Walker’s running career started on the track team at Albemarle Road Junior High and blossomed at the high school where he’d eventually return to teach: Independence, for which he starred both in cross-country and track.
He chose to remain in North Carolina for college, majoring in history at UNC Wilmington while also making history, as the first cross-country runner to earn an athletic scholarship from the university.
There was no slowing down for him after graduation.
While trying to find work as a teacher, Walker saved money by living with his parents in Matthews and pieced together income by chasing prize money in races all over the country that offered them, as long as he could get there cheaply.
But it was here in Charlotte where he claimed his biggest payday.
At age 24, Walker entered the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon — his first 26.2-mile race — on a bit of a whim, without even giving his personal running coach a heads-up. “I was gonna pretend,” he joked, wryly, “that I got in the wrong race by accident.” (The event also featured a 10K race.)
His bib number, 3381, actually suggested he wasn’t on anyone’s radar; in competitive running, numbers in the single or low-double digits typically are reserved for the bibs worn by professional, elite or at the very least sub-elite runners.
Walker got out in front of most of them early, though. And although the final miles nearly broke him, he was able to surge into a lead he maintained till he crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 5 seconds. At the time, it set the mark for fastest marathon ever run by a North Carolinian on a North Carolina course.
In a televised post-race interview, WBTV legend Bob Lacey asked Walker, “What kept you going the last few miles?” The winner replied: “I knew if I quit, I … would be forgotten. If I held on and won, it would be something I would remember forever.”
He went home with $4,000, which would help pay for two-thirds of the new car he bought later that year.
George Walker of Mint Hill, photographed in November while watching a YouTube video featuring a recap of his victory at the 1986 Charlotte Observer Marathon. Walker, 64, died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) this week. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
‘The most impassioned teacher I ever had’
Later that year, Walker landed the job at his high school alma mater, where he would go on to develop a sterling reputation, both as a beloved goofball of an 11th-grade history teacher — famous for, among other things, teaching his students to say “King George the Third” with a British accent — and as the coach of the Patriots’ cross-country team.
Independence also helped him find the love of his life in Elizabeth, a fellow teacher, whom he married in 2004.
Elizabeth Walker told the Observer her husband was “Independence’s biggest fan and biggest advocate,” someone who would show up at school board meetings if he was needed to stand up for his kids or his fellow faculty members. Among the many videos sent to Walker over the summer by former students who’d gotten wind of his terminal illness, one featured a woman who gushed: “He was by far the most impassioned teacher that I ever had growing up.”
He was by far the most tireless, as well, when it came to both his vocation and his fitness.
Walker went 18 years — from October 1995 until June 2013, when he retired — without missing a day of school. It dwarfed his longest running streak — one eclipsing 1,000 straight days — though that was still a massively impressive feat in its own right.
The more invested he became in his students, he told the Observer, the less-important running became to him over the course of his career.
“Running is selfish, but teaching is selfless,” he wrote in a speech delivered by Elizabeth on his behalf in August, when Independence dedicated the school’s track in his name. “As a runner, your focus is on trying to develop and improve yourself. … As a teacher, your focus is on trying to make everyone in front of you the best they can be.”
Two years after retiring, Walker returned to Independence as a regular substitute teacher.
“I had told everyone it was to earn some extra money,” he wrote in his speech. “But the truth was, I missed the students. I missed being in the classroom.”
Independence High School dedicated its track to George Walker over the summer. Courtesy of the Walker family
Deciding to move gracefully toward death
Sometime in the middle of 2023, George Walker started getting a tingling sensation in his feet. His running went downhill fast, lacing up for what would be the last run of his life on Labor Day in 2023.
He continued walking, often six or seven miles per day, and could still bang out bunches of push-ups on command. But diminished dexterity in his fingers came next, and his endurance decreased to where — by the following spring — he was mostly just going out to walk the dogs a short distance.
Doctors diagnosed Walker with ALS on May 4, 2024.
“When I first found out, I read 5% make it 20 years,” he recalled. “So I said, ‘OK, that’ll be me.’” He changed his outlook, however, upon learning it would mean eventually being on a feeding tube. “I said, ‘That’s not living, as far as I’m concerned.’”
Instead, he decided to move gracefully toward death by spending time reflecting on his past, appreciating what he could appreciate despite his circumstances in the present, and planning for the future.
That meant leafing through copious newspaper clippings that celebrate him in some way or another, smiling over them, and sharing iPhone photos of his favorites with anyone he thought might be interested.
That meant snuggling with his devoted toy poodle; binge-watching TV shows on Netflix; sending gift cards to about 200 friends, including some he hadn’t seen in decades, “just to tell ’em ‘thanks,’” he said; and, after losing most of his ability to chew and swallow, putting Hershey’s Kisses into his mouth and letting the sweet chocolate just melt there.
But most importantly, that meant making sure Elizabeth would enjoy golden years that were truly golden.
Although George hadn’t left the bedroom since May, he kept busy by phone, email and text in his final months, with a laser-focus on generally getting the couple’s finances in order for Elizabeth and, more specifically, managing renovations of a paid-off townhouse that was previously a rental property.
She’ll move into it and net the profits from the sale of their house, which also is paid off. She’ll get life insurance money from a policy taken out before he was diagnosed. She’ll want for nothing, according to George’s plan.
“I even told her, ‘If you meet the right person, get married.’ It’d be very selfish to not say that.”
He paused, then broke the somberness hanging in the air with another wry quip: “I also told her, ‘Just don’t pick up a gambling habit.’”
George Walker had no children of his own, but in addition to Elizabeth leaves behind a stepson, Jeffrey Caleb Canipe; a sister, Brenda Walker Lloyd; a collection of in-laws; his toy poodle Leo; a seven-month-old black Lab, Arya (named for “Game of Thrones’” heroine Arya Stark); dozens of cards and appreciation videos from former students; two very fat scrapbooks full of running memories; several bags of miniature chocolates; and a piece of simple advice:
If there’s something you want to do with your life, do it. Don’t put it off. Because you just never know when it will be too late.
A framed photo of George Walker running a road race in Charlotte in 1992, on display in the Walkers’ bedroom. Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez mrodriguez@charlotteobserver.com
This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 2:43 PM.
Théoden Janes has spent nearly 20 years covering entertainment and pop culture for the Observer. He also thrives on telling emotive long-form stories about extraordinary Charlotteans and — as a veteran of three dozen marathons and two Ironman triathlons — occasionally writes about endurance and other sports. Support my work with a digital subscription
Isiah Whitlock Jr., known for his roles in “The Wire,” “Veep” and several Spike Lee movies, has died, his manager confirmed to CBS News. He was 71.
A cause of death was not immediately provided.
His manager, Brian Liebman, described Whitlock in an Instagram post as a “brilliant actor and even better person.”
“It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my dear friend and client Isiah Whitlock Jr. If you knew him — you loved him,” Liebman wrote. “A brilliant actor and even better person. May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”
Isiah Whitlock Jr. attends a movie screening on Thursday, April 17, 2025, in New York.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Born in Indiana in 1954, Whitlock attended Southwest Minnesota State University and joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco after graduating. His first movie appearance was in the 1981 TV movie version of “A Christmas Carol.”
He’s perhaps best known for his role as state Sen. R. Clayton “Clay” Davis on HBO’s “The Wire.” He appeared on all five seasons of the acclaimed crime drama.
Whitlock was a recurring character in seasons two through four of the HBO comedy “Veep,” playing Defense Secretary George Maddox.
Whitlock was a frequent collaborator of Spike Lee and appeared in several movies, including “25th Hour,” “She Hate Me,” “Red Hook Summer,” “Chi-Raq,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods.”
In a tribute posted to Instagram, Lee wrote, “Today I Learned Of The Passing Of My Dear Beloved Brother ISIAH WHITLOCK. GOD BLESS.”
Whitlock made several appearances in the sketch comedy series “Chappelle’s Show.” On the big screen, he also had roles in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” as well as in “Pieces of April,” “Enchanted” and Pixar’s “Cars 3” and “Lightyear.”
He voiced a character in Pixar’s upcoming animated sci-fi comedy “Hoppers,” slated for release in 2026.
DENVER (AP) — Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the former senator and U.S. representative of Colorado known for his passionate advocacy of Native American issues, died Tuesday. He was 92.
Campbell died of natural causes surrounded by his family, his daughter, Shanan Campbell, confirmed to The Associated Press.
Campbell, a Democrat who stunned his party by joining the Republican Party, stood out in Congress as much for his unconventional dress — cowboy boots, bolo ties and ponytail — as his defense of children’s rights, organized labor and fiscal conservatism.
A member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, Campbell said his ancestors were among more than 150 Native Americans, mostly women, children and elderly men, killed by U.S. soldiers while camped under a flag of truce on Nov. 29, 1864.
He served three terms in the House, starting in 1987. He then served two terms in the Senate, from 1993 to 2005.
Among his accomplishments was helping sponsor legislation upgrading the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado to a national park.
“He was a master jeweler with a reputation far beyond the boundaries of Colorado,” said Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper on X. “I will not forget his acts of kindness. He will be sorely missed.”
Campbell was seen as a maverick
The motorcycle-riding lawmaker and cattle rancher was considered a maverick even before he abruptly switched to the Republican Party in March 1995, angry with Democrats for killing a balanced-budget amendment in the Senate. His switch outraged Democratic leaders and was considered a coup for the GOP.
“I get hammered from the extremes,” he said shortly afterward. “I’m always willing to listen … but I just don’t think you can be all things to all people, no matter which party you’re in.”
Considered a shoo-in for a third Senate term, Campbell stunned supporters when he dropped out of the race in 2004 after a health scare.
“I thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t,” said Campbell. “But when I was lying on that table in the hospital looking up at all those doctors’ faces, I decided then, ‘Do I really need to do this six more years after I’ve been gone so much from home?’ I have two children I didn’t get to see grow up, quite frankly.”
He retired to focus on the Native American jewelry that helped make him wealthy and was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. He also worked on a line of outdoor gear with a California-based company, Kiva Designs, and became a senior policy adviser with the powerhouse law firm of Holland & Knight in Washington.
Campbell founded Ben Nighthorse Consultants which focused on federal policy, including Native American affairs and natural resources. The former senator also drove the Capitol Christmas Tree across the country to Washington, D.C., on several occasions.
“He was truly one of a kind, and I am thinking of his family in the wake of his loss,” said Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on X.
An accidental politician
In 1982, he was planning to deliver his jewelry to California, but bad weather grounded his plane. He was killing time in the southern Colorado city of Durango when he went to a county Democratic meeting and wound up giving a speech for a friend running for sheriff.
Democrats were looking for someone to challenge a GOP legislative candidate and sounded out Campbell during the meeting. “Like a fish, I was hooked,” he said.
His opponent, Don Whalen, was a popular former college president who “looked like he was out of a Brooks Brothers catalog,” Campbell recalled. “I don’t think anybody gave me any kind of a chance. … I just think I expended a whole lot of energy to prove them wrong.”
Campbell hit the streets, ripping town maps out of the Yellow Pages and walking door to door to talk with people. He recalled leaving a note at a house in Cortez where no one was home when he heard a car roar into the driveway, gravel flying and brakes squealing.
The driver jumped out, tire iron in hand, and screamed that Campbell couldn’t have his furniture. “Aren’t you the repossession company?” the man asked.
“And I said, ‘No man, I’m just running for office.’ We got to talking, and I think the guy voted for me.”
Campbell went on to win and he never lost an election thereafter, moving from the Colorado House to the U.S. House and then the Senate.
Born April 13, 1933, in Auburn, California, Campbell served in the Air Force in Korea from 1951 to 1953 and received a bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University in 1957. He attended Meiji University in Tokyo from 1960 to 1964, was captain of the U.S. judo team in the 1964 Olympics and won a gold medal in the Pan American Games.
Campbell once called then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt a “forked-tongued snake” for opposing a water project near the southern Colorado town of Ignacio, which Campbell promoted as a way to honor the water rights of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.
He clashed with environmentalists on everything from mining law and grazing reforms to setting aside land for national monuments.
Despite all this — or perhaps because of it — voters loved him. In 1998, Campbell won reelection to the Senate by routing Democrat Dottie Lamm, the wife of former Gov. Dick Lamm, despite his switch to the GOP. He was the only Native American in the Senate at the time.
Campbell insisted his principles didn’t change, only his party
He said he was criticized as a Democrat for voting with Republicans, and then pilloried by some newspapers for his stances after the switch.
“It didn’t change me. I didn’t change my voting record. For instance, I had a sterling voting record as a Democrat on labor. I still do as a Republican. And on minorities and women’s issues,” he said.
Campbell said his values — liberal on social issues, conservative on fiscal ones — were shaped by his life. Children’s causes were dear to him because he and his sister spent time in an orphanage when his father was in jail and his mother had tuberculosis.
Organized labor won his backing because hooking up with the Teamsters and learning to drive a truck got him out of the California tomato fields. His time as a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy in California in the late 1960s and early ’70s made him a law enforcement advocate.
His decision to retire from politics, Campbell said, had nothing to do with allegations that Ginnie Kontnik, his former chief of staff, solicited kickbacks from another staffer and that his office lobbied for a contract for a technology company with ties to the former senator.
He referred both matters to the Senate Ethics Committee. In 2007, Kontnik pleaded guilty to a federal charge of not reporting $2,000 in income.
“I guess there was some disappointment” with those charges, Campbell said. “But a lot of things happen in Washington that disappoint you. You just have to get over them because every day there’s a new crisis to deal with.” ___ This story has been corrected to remove a reference to a massacre occurring at Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The massacre that was referenced took place at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.
Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy, has died shortly after announcing she had a terminal cancer diagnosis, the JFK Library Foundation said Tuesday.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” read a message from her family on the institution’s Instagram account, alongside an image of Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, 35, who had a career as an environmental journalist, wrote in an essay published by The New Yorker last month that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in 2024, shortly after the birth of her second child. She underwent grueling treatment, including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, but the cancer returned and she was eventually given a prognosis of one year to live, she wrote.
Tatiana Schlossberg speaks at an event in New York City in on Sept. 9, 2019.
It was 1956 when Brigitte Bardot burst into global fame with And God Created Woman, a film directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim. Though not her first film, it was the one where everything changed for the icon, who died Sunday at age 91: Suddenly, she was the embodiment of sensuality and feminine freedom.
Before she retired from acting in 1973, Brigitte Bardot appeared in over 50 films, spanning comedy, drama, and adventure. Many were huge successes at the global box office, spurred by an interest in her style on and offscreen. Read on for her most iconic performances and notable films.
‘The Grand Maneuver’
Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images
The Grand Maneuver (1955)
Before Bardot’s breakout success, director René Clair cast her in a romantic comedy opposite Gérard Philipe. In the role, Bardot proved her charm was not only provocative but also playful, capable of sustaining the pace and lightness of an entertaining film without losing intensity.
It felt like those we lost this year were as numerous as raindrops. Luminaries like Robert Redford, who challenged Hollywood to do better, to think harder, to take risks.
He was of Hollywood, but he preferred to live away from it. His Sundance Film Institute and Festival gave independent filmmakers a bit of sun at Sundance, promoting what he told “Sunday Morning” in 2018 were “the smaller stories. The more offbeat stories. The more controversial.”
Redford lived long enough to see fellow Oscar-winner Gene Hackman pass away. Hackman shone just as brightly. He could be gentle, as in “Hoosiers,” and powerful, as in “The French Connection.”
The real-lifeheroes from the civil rights movement are sadly getting more scarce every day. Sam Moore‘s song “Soul Man” was meant to show pride and resilience.
And there was one person who lived those values for 111 years: Viola Fletcher, the oldest witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre. Then there was Charles Person, the youngest among the original famed “Freedom Riders” protest in 1961. Joseph McNeil took a stand … by sitting, at a Whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter. Jo Ann Allen, one of the “Clinton 12,” was among the first to endure the desegregation of schools all across the South. Bobby Cain was, too. He became the first Black student to graduate under those conditions.
A decade later, courage like that inspired the likes of Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods to record a song with a message of belonging, “Get Together.”
“Come on people now, Smile on your brother, Everybody get together, Try to love one another right now”
The song permeated the Summer of Love. The late Sly Stone, of Sly and the Family Stone, got on board the inclusion train, too, with his song “Everyday People.” He certainly had an ear for the times.
Dick Cheney, who had an ear for politics, started his career the same year that song came out. He went on to become the most influential Vice President in history, especially in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Asked by “Sunday Morning” in 2015 if he was changed by the events of that day, Cheney replied, “Well, it’s been alleged by some of my friends that 9/11 did change Cheney, that when he was a Secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration, he was a warm, pleasant, lovable fellow, and he became more of a hard rock afterwards. And I think that’s probably true.”
He remained a staunch conservative – until, that is, 2024, when he voted for Democrat Kamala Harris.
That’s similar to Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Nominated by President George H.W. Bush, he leaned more to the left in his later years. He left us at 85.
Right in the middle was Senator Alan Simpson, who balanced his conservative views with more moderate stands — a plain-spoken cowboy from the plains of Wyoming who got his wings at 93.
Peter Yarrow, of Peter Paul and Mary, got his wings this year, too. The tenor who helped bridge the gap between folk and pop was 86.
Jimmy Cliff (“I Can See Clearly Now”) bridged another gap: helping make reggae mainstream. The former choir boy from Jamaica found some of his inspiration in the traditions of gospel music, such as “Many Rivers to Cross.”
Pope Francis crossed that final river this year – a day after he blessed the faithful in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
Whether you believe in Heaven as a destination or not, there’s no doubt the heavens are unending. Astronaut James Lovell never landed on the moon, but saw it closer than most. He took to the skies for the last time at age 97.
Back on Earth, astrophysicist Fred Espenak was chasing our galaxy with a telescope. He witnessed the moon blot out the sun 52 times – a sci-fi experience in real life.
We lost others who imagined life beyond the stars – in movie posters. Drew Struzan was the artist behind the theater posters for the “Star Wars” films and the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Renato Casaro gave life to blockbusters like “Rambo” and “Terminator 2.”
And then there was Joe Caroff, the artist who created the James Bond logo.
We also lost some who appeared in those classic Bond films – tough guys like Bruce Glover, the assassin in “Diamonds Are Forever”; and Joe Don Baker, the arms dealer in “The Living Daylights.”
We lost Rebekah Del Rio, that unforgettable singer in “Mulholland Drive,” the same year that we lost director David Lynch who put her in that film.
In 2016 Lynch told “Sunday Morning” that people should not confuse the characters in his movies with his state of mind: “Stories are stories,” he said. “And like I say, the artist doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering.”
Oscar-nominee Diane Ladd offered plenty of suffering in Lynch’s “Wild at Heart.” Her daughter, Laura Dern, and the rest of her fans mourned her loss at 89.
Sharing a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Ladd, far from the beach, was the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. Wilson was called the poet laureate of surf culture.
But when it came to the poetry of baseball, there were few better than Bob Uecker. He was a ballplayer who became “Mr. Baseball,” a pioneer for his wit and self-deprecating humor. Asked by “Sunday Morning” in 2024 his favorite Bob Uecker line, he replied, “Just a bit outside. That’s where my wife put me a lot of times!”
Nina Kuscsik was left outside of the men in marathons – until, that is, she became the first woman to enter the New York City Marathon, and the first official female winner of the Boston Marathon.
In figure skating, Dick Button was the first to land a double axel, and the first American to bring home gold in Olympic figure skating – twice.
Button was elegant and fierce, much the way George Foreman was in the boxing ring. He got a heavyweight world title in his 20s – and then unbelievably again in his 40s. And even if you never saw him box, you probably saw him cook. He described his George Foreman Grill as a real “knockout.”
Another ringmaster – and master marketer – was Hulk Hogan, the face of professional wrestling for decades. He was the ultimate showman, who died of cardiac arrest at age 71.
There were, this year, so many unnatural deaths, especially, it seems, on college campuses, from Brown University just before Christmas, to Utah Valley University, where political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered. He was there organizing young voters around Christian conservative values. The students who saw what happened will never be the same.
Anne Marie Hochhalter survived the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, but 26 years later it caught up with her. She died from injuries related to the shooting that left her paralyzed. She was only 43.
It’s hard to fathom just how much life does come after a tragedy. John Cleary was shot on the campus of Kent State University, a moment captured in a Life Magazine photo. But he ended up finishing his degree in architecture. He lived another 55 years.
We lost others in architecture, too. David Childs designed the Freedom Tower in the wake of 9/11.
We lost Frank Gehry, perhaps the most recognizable American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright.
And then there was Giorgio Armani, an architect of fashion, who turned red carpet events into press conference. Who was wearing him got a lot of coverage.
So many of those who asked the questions trying to get answers about all kinds of things left us this year, like our colleague Mark Knoller. With his booming voice, and a treasure trove of presidential trivia, he gave CBS’ White House coverage a real spark. Morris Banks, a cameraman who was equally intimidating in stature, travelled the world for CBS to brings us stories of people and events. The same was true of “Sunday Morning”‘s Jim McLaughlin.
Human voices, sometimes shouting in the wilderness, can do remarkably good things, even if those voices are voicing pain. Virginia Giuffre was the first of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to go public. Soon, other survivors joined her. They began speaking with one voice – shining lights in the dark. In 2020 she told “CBS This Morning,” “The buck stops when every single monster gets held accountable and our children are safe. And we need everyone’s help.”
Giuffre was just 41.
Conservationist Jane Goodall raised her voice from the jungles of East Africa, where her work with chimpanzees made us look at ourselves – and our relationship with the animal kingdom – in a different and special way. In 1990 she said, “We’re not quite as different from the rest of the animal kingdom as we used to think.”
In fact, animals can seem every bit as human as we are. June Lockhart played Lassie’s “mom,” among a lot of other roles. She was always just as intuitive as Lassie herself.
That Golden Era of TV started the career of Rob Reiner, too, and while he was a good actor, it was directing where he really made his mark. Name some of your favorite movies and chances are Reiner directed them. From comedy (“This Is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “The Princess Bride”), to drama (“Misery,” “A Few Good Men”), he had his finger on our pulse the way few people did.
Rob Reiner, and his wife Michele, left us far too soon.
Another familiar face was George Wendt. As Norm on “Cheers,” there’s no wonder everybody knew his name. Wendt was 76.
We also lost David Ketchum from “Get Smart”; and Malcolm Jamal Warner, from “The Cosby Show.” It’s hard to think of any of them getting any older. Take TV’s Dennis the Menace: Child actor Jay North couldn’t stay young forever. He was 73 when he died at his home in Florida.
And then there was actor Richard Chamberlain, who played the young intern Dr. Kildare. He went on to star in blockbuster TV miniseries like “Shogun” and “The Thorn Birds.”
Both those novels hit the bestseller list – and so did the “Confessions of a Shopaholic” series, authored by Madeleine Wickham, who wrote under the pen-name Sophie Kinsella.
In 2014 she told “CBS This Morning,” “You’re hoping that people will enjoy your book, but you don’t know, and off it goes. But then you meet somebody who says ‘Well you know what, I ,,read your book in the middle of the night while I was recovering from operation, and it got me through.’ I mean, how could you do anything better in life than that?”
The British author died of brain cancer at just 55.
Few British playwrights have been compared to Shakespeare, but Tom Stoppard was. In 1999 he told “Sunday Morning,” “It seemed to me that having a play on at the National Theatre, for example, was some kind of Everest which only a chosen few could ever even hope to aspire to. It turns out to be something that can happen to people like me.”
Portrayals of those in our nation’s uniform rarely get better than “M*A*S*H” or, later, “Top Gun.” Few could top Tom Cruise as a cocky Naval aviator, but Val Kilmer did. He played so many other roles, from Jim Morrison of The Doors, to Doc Holliday in “Tombstone.” “I like characters,” Kilmer told “Sunday Morning” in 2013. “I think that’s what people have enjoyed most in my acting.”
But it was “Iceman” that stuck with all of us right till the very end. Val Kilmer was 65.
Airmen who saw real combat in World War II are few and far between these days, like John “Lucky” Luckadoo. They called him that because he survived so much, and he continued to, making it to 103.
Joe Harris lived to 108 – one of the oldest WWII paratroopers.
George Hardy earned his wings at just 19, making him one of the youngest Tuskegee Airmen. Jessie Mahaffey survived the attack on Pearl Harbor – and the sinking of another ship just a year later. he was 102. Donald McPherson distinguished himself as an “ace” in the skies above Okinawa. Julia Parsons, one of the last Enigma code breakers, left us, too, this, year.
Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., March 17, 1973. In the lead is Stirm’s daughter Lori, 15, followed by son Robert, 14; daughter Cynthia, 11; wife Loretta; and son Roger, 12.
Sal Veder/AP
Some, however, never came home, but Vietnam POW Lt Col. Robert Stirm finally did. The Pulitzer Prize-winning picture said it all – his family seeing his facefor the first time in almost six years.
Words never matched those feelings, but lyricist Alan Bergman‘s words got pretty close. He and his wife, co-writer Marilyn Bergman, are perhaps best known for the classic “The Way We Were.”
So many couples we remember the way they were, like Dorothy Vogel and her late husband Herb. On modest means, upstairs in their rent-controlled apartment, they amassed an art collection worth millions. True to their modesty, before their deaths, they gave most of it away.
What Rick Davies gave away was his artistry behind the Wurlitzer electric piano. It gave the supergroup Supertramp its signature chart-topping sound. He was 81.
We lost “Space Ace” – Ace Frehley – of the heavy metal group Kiss this year, too. He made fans believe his playing really did make his guitar smoke (and maybe it did!).
And then there was Ozzy Osbourne, the lead singer of Black Sabbath and self-described Prince of Darkness. His wife, Sharon Osbourne, stayed with him through thick and thin. Asked by “Sunday Morning” in 2012 what their secret was, Ozzy replied, “I don’t know. You know, I’m in the rock and roll. Because you rock and you roll. You know, you just get on with it.”
Those musicians who have just “gone with it,” like D’Angelo and Connie Francis, still left us their talents that make us, as trumpeter Chuck Mangione did, feel “so good” … like Bobby Sherman(“Julie, Do Ya Love Me”); John Lodgeof The Moody Blues (“Nights in White Satin”); and Marianne Faithfull (“As Tears Go By”);
There was also singer and guitarist Wayne Osmondof The Osmonds (“Crazy Horses”), and Mark Volman of The Turtles (“Happy Together”).
“Happy together” just might describe what most people were feeling when they were in the company of the legendary Diane Keaton. Some called her quirky, even kooky. But everyone agreed she was talented beyond measure. She could do searing dramas and romantic comedies, always holding her own with the best of them. “I think that one of the reasons I’ve been able to be around for as long as I have, is because I have been in funny movies,” she told “Sunday Morning” in 2010.
She left her mark not only as an actor, but with her fashion sense, too.
Keaton was certainly unique, as most of those we remember are. There are far too many to name. But for their talents, their passions, their love and care and influence, we are forever grateful.
To all of them we bid a very fond “Hail, and Farewell.”
Story produced by Young Kim. Editor: Steve Tyler. Digital producer: David Morgan.
Brigitte Bardot, the French icon who glamorously embodied the postwar pop zeitgeist, has died. Her animal rights foundation announced the news in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse. No cause or date of death were given. Bardot was 91 years old.
Bardot was born into a wealthy Parisian family in 1934 and trained as a ballerina before landing the modeling jobs that launched her whirlwind career. She posed for the cover of Elle at 15 and made her acting debut two years later, in the comedy Le Trou Normand. Throughout the ’50s, her appearance in risqué French films, some directed by then-husband Roger Vadim, endeared her to future giants of the nouvelle vague. Among them were Jean-Luc Godard, who cast her in his 1963 film Contempt, and new-wave godfather Louis Malle, whose Viva Maria! starred Bardot alongside Jeanne Moreau.
Bardot started releasing music in the ’60s, collaborating with Bob Zagury, Sacha Distel, and, most sensationally, Serge Gainsbourg. Late in the decade, amid a scandalous affair conducted during her third marriage, Bardot and Gainsbourg released the classic duets “Comic Strip” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” A 1968 album, Bonnie and Clyde, compiled her recordings of various Gainsbourg numbers.
In 1973, Bardot announced her retirement from the entertainment industry, after which she became a prominent animal rights activist. In 1986, she founded the Fondation Brigitte Bardot to support global animal welfare. By the turn of the century, she had received the first of several fines for Islamophobic remarks, which often used discussion of halal meat practice to springboard into aggressively nationalist rhetoric about perceived “savages,” immigration, and racial purity. By 2021, she had been fined six times for inciting racial hatred .
Bardot is survived by her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, a former aide to the French fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose successor, Marine Le Pen, Bardot endorsed in recent elections.
Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died, according to her foundation. She was 91.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the passing of its Founder and President, Brigitte Bardot, the world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her Foundation,” the foundation said in a statement to CBS News.
Bruno Jacquelin, with the foundation, told the Associated Press that the late actress died Sunday in southern France. He gave no cause of death and said no arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.
Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman.” Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.
At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars.
French actress Brigitte Bardot poses with a sombrero she brought back from Mexico, as she arrives at Orly Airport in Paris, France, on May 27, 1965.
AP
Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for “Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps and even on coins.
“We are mourning a legend,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Sunday on social media.
Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.
“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition.
A turn to the far right
Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.
She was convicted and fined five times in French courts of inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.
Bardot’s 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a onetime adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racism convictions of his own, as a “lovely, intelligent man.”
In 2012, she wrote a letter in support of the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s renamed National Rally party. Le Pen paid homage Sunday to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French.”
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many played “the teases” with producers to land parts.
She said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass.”
A privileged, but “difficult” upbringing
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born Sept. 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.
Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.
But it was French movie producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote “And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.
The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.
The film was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.
“It’s an embarrassment to have acted so badly,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”
Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for paparazzi.
Bardot never adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the constant press attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broken into her house two weeks before she gave birth to snap a picture of her pregnant.
Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father, and later said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.
“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had none to offer.”
In her 1996 autobiography “Initiales B.B.,” she likened her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive.”
Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship again ended in divorce three years later.
Among her films were “A Parisian” (1957); “In Case of Misfortune,” in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; “The Truth” (1960); “Private Life” (1962); “A Ravishing Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear And The Doll” (1970); “Rum Boulevard” (1971); and “Don Juan” (1973).
With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed “Contempt,” directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.
“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”
Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after “The Woman Grabber.”
Reinventing herself in middle age
She emerged a decade later with a new persona: An animal rights lobbyist, her face was wrinkled and her voice was deep following years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation devoted exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.
Her activism knew no borders. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to then- President Bill Clinton asking why the U.S. Navy recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.
Brigitte Bardot with a dog in the Gennevilliers, Paris, while supporting the French animal protection society operation, Feb. 10, 1982.
Duclos / AP
She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and campaigned on behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens and turtle doves.
“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward … my distress takes over,” Bardot told the AP when asked about her racial hatred convictions and opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter.
In 1997, several towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actress voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.
Bardot once said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.
“I can understand hunted animals because of the way I was treated,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”
Brigitte Bardot, the iconic international screen siren who retired from acting to become an animal rights activist, died Sunday, according to a representative from animal protection charity The Brigitte Bardot Foundation. She was 91.
Bardot ranked among the most beautiful women of all time, according to Esquire and legions of admirers. At the height of her fame, her last name was as indelible as Marilyn Monroe’s first. “Along with General de Gaulle and the Eiffel Tower, I am perhaps the best-known French person in the world!” she once wrote. French writer Simone de Beauvoir observed in 1962 that “Bardot is as important an export [to France] as Renault automobiles.” In 1970, she was immortalized in sculpture by artist Aslan as Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.
Bardot, also known as B.B., rose to stardom in the 1950s and ’60s, when foreign films found mainstream success in America, partly because of their more sexually explicit content. In Bardot’s 1956 breakout film, her then husband Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman, she is first glimpsed sunbathing naked. Playing off the film’s title, the provocative tagline for the American release was, “But the Devil invented Brigitte Bardot.”
According to Vadim’s New York Timesobituary, a climactic scene in that film in which Bardot danced barefoot on a table “is often cited as a breakthrough in what was considered permissible to show on screen.” Vadim is quoted: “There was really nothing shocking in what Brigitte did. What was provocative was her natural sensuality.”
The luxuriantly blonde Bardot was a fresh, naturalistic departure from the more glamorous and studied stars of the era. She was “a sex symbol, but talked like a woman you could meet on the street,” according to the documentary Discovering Brigitte Bardot.
Bardot made roughly 50 films between 1952 and 1973, the year she quit acting. Though none of her films are considered classics, she was a major box office draw, and she herself became a style icon who popularized the bikini and wearing tops off the shoulder. She worked with several distinguished directors, including Anatole Litvak (Act of Love, 1953), Henri-Georges Clouzot (La Vérité, 1960), Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt, 1963) and Louis Malle (Viva Maria!, 1965).
In her memoir, Initiales B.B.—published in France in 1996—Bardot also dished about her many lovers, including actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Warren Beatty and musician Serge Gainsbourg. She wrote of gaining entrance to Marlon Brando’s hotel room disguised as a chambermaid, then fleeing because of the room’s smell and slovenliness.
Legendary French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has died at 91, her foundation announced Sunday.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation,” it said in a statement to the French news agency Agence France-Presse.
Bardot had been hospitalized briefly in late October at Saint-Jean Hospital in Toulon, where she underwent a minor surgical procedure, according to a statement from her office to AFP.
Miriam “Mimi” Mardrid Puga speaks during a Denver City Council public hearing on the status of the Office of the Independent Monitor. Aug. 15, 2016.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
This year, the queer, Latin and Native scene in Denver lost a pillar of their community. Miriam “Mimi” Madrid died on Nov. 6.
Madrid was the founder and executive director of Fortaleza Familiar, a community based nonprofit that was focused on the wellness of Chicanx, Latinx, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ youth, as well as their families.
Fortaleza Familiar puts on different programs like “Liberate Ourselves,” which is a six-day youth leadership program. They also host campaigns to help people in need. According to their bio, Madrid worked more than a decade in reproductive justice, liberation movements and youth LGBTQ+ leadership.
“I believe in the power of youth, elimination of borders, popular education, all forms of art expression, intergenerational healing and learning, swaying on the continuums of gender expression, identity, and orientation, singing out-loud, leaving to come back, dancing in revolution, and sana-sana-colita-de-rana,” they wrote in their bio.
For Dia de Los Muertos, they published information about transgender deaths throughout the world, and highlighted deceased people who faced different forms of discrimination.
“These artists, activists, and changemakers lived boldly, often defying norms to create beauty and justice in the world,” the website reads. “Through their art, music, words, and movements, they opened doors and made room for generations to come.”
Kimmy Fry has been with Fortelza Familiar since 2023 and said that their favorite part of working with the non-profit was the relationships this group created, and what they were able to teach each other.
“There’s so much learning and unlearning and healing within our community because of all of our intersectional identities, and so that along with our generational knowledge sharing is super important along with not only do we have to take care of each other physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally,” Fry said. “We’re also trying to find those pockets of joy because Mimi’s passing is going to be long lasting.”
Fry said that her and Madrid would actively try to embody being whimsical throughout life.
“There’s this joke that Mimi and I would have about us being whimsical and that is all that we have left because we’ve already gone through sadness, we’ve already gone through anger and gone through spite,” Fry said. “So whimsical, and this silly energy is what’s keeping us alive and fueling us in this battle of just everything that’s happening politically. And it’s beautiful to think about because it’s not childlike. It’s something that we were born with. We were born to wonder and to explore and to be curious.”
Madrid came to Denver when they were in the fourth grade from El Paso, Texas. They got their degree in Convergent Media and Journalism from Metropolitan State University of Denver. They were also rewarded with a top Denver Press Club scholarship in 2018.
“The essence of journalism is listening,” Madrid told DPC. “We have to know and use all forms of communications, including print, photojournalism and videography. My goal is to illustrate the human condition, to partner with global storytellers like my grandmother to change the world one story at a time.”
They are survived by their wife, Eleanor Dewey, and many family members, both related and chosen.
Their work with Fortaleza Familiar will continue its outreach for queer, Latin and Native youth. Celeste Razavi-Shearer, a long time friend and colleague of Madrid, said their legacy of healing through nature will live on.
“Mimi is the kind of person whose presence instantly changed lives. He looked you in the eyes and saw you, even when the world might have cast you aside. Their actions on this land were guided by the ways of our ancestors — healing ways, just ways, ways aligned with Mother Earth. Her work began in surviving inherited challenges as a queer/trans/Two Spirit indigenous/Mexican youth,” Razavi-Shearer wrote.
“Those experiences of adversity shaped his life’s position as a protector, decolonizer, mentor, husband, sibling, parent, teacher, lover, farmer and artist. He had so many gifts, but his natural instincts around lifting up young people everywhere will never be forgotten. Fortaleza Familiar is the last community project he shaped in life, but his work and love lives on in so many who will forever miss his warmth, playfulness, beauty, brilliance, modesty, authenticity, generosity and lion’s roar for justice.”
Perry Bamonte, the Cure’s longtime guitarist and keyboardist, has died following an undisclosed illness. He was 65. In a statement posted to their website, the band wrote that Bamonte, who went by the nickname “Teddy,” was “quiet, intense, intuitive, constant and hugely creative,” as well as “a vital part of the Cure story.”
Perry Bamonte was born in September 1960 in London. He first joined the Cure in 1984, as a roadie and Robert Smith’s guitar tech. Six years later, Bamonte was invited to become a full-time member following the departure of keyboardist Roger O’Donnell. He would go on to perform more than 400 shows with the band and played across several Cure albums, including Wild Mood Swings and Bloodflowers. He left the group in 2005 and rejoined in 2022, ahead of their Shows of a Lost World tour.
In 2019, Bamonte was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his Cure bandmates. You can read the full statement from the band below.
It is with enormous sadness that we confirm the death of our great friend and bandmate Perry Bamonte who passed away after a short illness at home over Christmas. Quiet, intense, intuitive, constant and hugely creative, ‘Teddy’ was a warm hearted and vital part of the Cure story. ‘Looking after the band’ from 1984 through 1989, he became a full time member of the Cure in 1990, playing guitar, six string bass and keyboard on the wish, Wild Mood Swings, Bloodflowers, Acoustic Hits and The Cure albums, as well as performing more than 400 shows over 14 years. He rejoined the Cure in 2022, playing another 90 shows, some of the best in the band’s history, culminating with the show of a Lost World concert in London 1st November 2024. Our thoughts and condolences are with all his family. He will be very greatly missed.
Chainsaw sculptor Clyde Jones stands with some of his cedar creations and hand paintings, (background) around his home in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum.
Harry Lynch
File photo
BYNUM
Clyde Jones, the self-taught folk artist who carved thousands of eccentric “critters” with his chain saw and found international fame as “the Picasso of driftwood,” has died.
He was 86 or 87, depending on which year he was born, which he confessed being unable to remember.
In declining health for several years, Jones succumbed Wednesday to a variety of age-related illnesses and had entered long-term care, where friends played banjo by his bedside, according to a GoFundMe page set up for expenses.
“I told him I hoped he was at peace in there,” wrote Julie Trotter. “That he had done a lot of good. Made millions of kids happy. Brought folks a lot of joy. Told him that folks everywhere love him and his art.”
Local folk artist, Clyde Jones smiles as he walks among the attendees of the 11th Annual ClydeFEST in 2012. Chuck Liddy File photo
What’s more precious than a young’un?
Jones spent his life in the small Chatham County mill town of Bynum, where his yard off U.S. 15/501 grew to a well-known roadside attraction. With its sign reading “Critter Corner,” it caught the eye of passers-by with its menagerie of wild-eyed animals painted yellow and blue, sporting racquetballs and daisies for eyes.
He rode around town on a purple lawn mower painted with sparkles, often in a baseball cap, usually accompanied by a dog named Speck — now interred in his yard and surrounded by critters. He lived otherwise alone in a house that sported paintings of penguins, dolphins and other sea creatures.
On April 5, 2014, Clyde Jones sat on his custom decorated riding lawnmower as he awaited “customers” to get his water transfer tattoos during the 13th annual ClydeFEST Kids Carnival of Folk Art, which honors him and his work in Bynum. Chuck Liddy File photo
Jones never accepted money for his work, once turning down an offer from ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov. He had one of his giraffes sent to the governor’s mansion for First Lady Mary Easley in 2005, decorating it with daisies for eyes.
He preferred giving his art away, especially to children or charities that helped them, and he showed his chain-saw skills at hundreds of schools around North Carolina, offering kids a turn with his hammer.
“I’d go out of my way to give ‘em to a young’un,” he told The N&O in 1987. “What’s more precious than a young’un?”
Clyde Jones, a former mill worker turned chainsaw artist, pumps his fists in front of his Bynum home as the second of two wooden giraffes is secured to a trailer, ready for transport to the governor’s mansion on April 29, 2005. The giraffes were to be gifts for the governor’s wife, Mary Easley, a day ahead of ClydeFEST 2005. Ted Richardson File photo
That vision comes from the folk
He rose to fame along with Wilson whirligig artist Vollis Simpson, both of them fixtures of the visionary folk art movement that gained popularity around the 1980s, celebrating untrained, rural artists with a mystical eye.
Throughout his decades of creating, Jones would see his work grace the roof of Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, the Bynum General Store, the Smithsonian, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore and the Great Wall of China.
He kept them rough-edged and crude — natural, he would say. Sometimes his creatures stood more than 10 feet high, polka-dotted and they seemed to laugh to themselves over a silent joke.
“The critters which Clyde Jones constructed transcended time and connected us to the stories of our childhood wanderings about the big world outside our bedroom and backyard,” said Will Hinton, a Louisburg artist and professor. “A grinning smile of joy was always my response to seeing his gifts of hand and heart. This ain’t something you learn in art school. This vision comes from the folk.”
Chain saw sculptor Clyde Jones wanders by some of his taller chainsaw creations in his backyard. Jones says he prefers cedar to make his sculptures. Harry Lynch File photo
Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.
Lloyd Scher, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner, philanthropist and two-time state legislature candidate, died Dec. 18 following a battle with Parkinson’s disease and an inoperable brain tumor. He was 75.
Loved ones remember Scher as a jovial man with a loud demeanor and quirky personality. He was an artist — photography and writing were his mediums of choice — and he seemed to know everybody around, from NBA players to producers.
But most of all, they remember his selfless heart.
“Everybody who knew Lloyd knew that he was a dreamer, and not everything he hoped for would come,” said Ed Cecil, who knew Scher since he was 13. “I want people to remember him for his generosity and his hard work to make things a better place than they were when he got there.”
From New York to North Carolina
Scher was born in New York and had three brothers. The siblings were raised by their mother and aunt after their father died when Scher was 5 years old.
He maintained “a pretty good Brooklyn accent” throughout his life, though it would soften over time, said Scott Verner, a longtime friend and former Charlotte Observer editor who was with Scher when he died. He also remained a stalwart fan of the Dodgers baseball team, which was based in Brooklyn during his childhood.
But Scher was a Charlottean through and through: He moved to the city at 8 years old and would spend the majority of his life here.
He left Charlotte only a couple of times when he was young, first to serve in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, then to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC was “the best school on earth” to Scher, Verner said. He applied seven times before getting accepted, with each rejection fueling his resolve. Once there, he was the varsity basketball team’s manager, becoming close friends with stars such as Al Wood and Jimmy Black.
And he was a dedicated foodie with particular obsessions, never leaving a restaurant without asking for seconds to go.
“Lloyd was Jewish, but his favorite thing was ham biscuits. He would hog the biscuits,” Cecil said. “And if it wasn’t the ham biscuits he was loving, it was the banana pudding. Lloyd always said he hoped he would die in a hot tub full of banana pudding.”
Elected life
The public might best remember Scher as a political figure. He was elected to four terms on the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners from 1992 to 2000.
Scher was regarded as an outspoken liberal at a time when Republicans had a strong presence in Charlotte politics.
As former commissioner Bill James once described to the Observer: “Lloyd is one of the few honestly open liberals on the commission … I do totally respect him. Even though I don’t agree with him, he takes honest stands on issues.”
Strong constituent services made Scher a popular candidate. He was ever-present in his neighborhoods and schools, frequently attending PTA meetings and performing puppet shows for kids.
However, personal financial troubles swayed enough voters to side with a new leader in his district in 2000. A criminal investigation into his fundraising hung over Scher’s campaign leading up to the election, though he was ultimately cleared of charges.
He later served on the county’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, where he tracked whether bartenders were checking patrons’ IDs before serving them alcohol, Verner said.
Scher shifted his attention to state politics in 2007. The North Carolina House of Representatives considered him to fill a vacant seat but went instead with Tricia Cotham.
The two formally ran against each other in the subsequent Democratic primary, making him Cotham’s first-ever opponent in her decades-spanning political career.
Scher once again entered the political fray in 2016 when he ran for state Senate. Scher lost to Republican Dan Bishop, who authored the controversial House Bill 2, often referred to as the “bathroom bill,” requiring individuals in public buildings to use the bathroom aligned with the gender on their birth certificate.
“He was as strong a Democrat as anybody could be,” Verner said. “It took a lot of courage to run against Bishop.”
‘Always trying to help somebody’
Scher served in other, quieter ways, too.
Beyond politics, Scher was a member of the Lions Club, where he worked to address limitations faced by blind and vision-impaired people, Verner said. He was also a faithful member of the Jewish religion and a longtime congregant of Temple Israel in south Charlotte.
Each year, Scher hosted his own birthday party and asked attendees to bring new and unwrapped toys. He delivered loads of gifts to local agencies that served disadvantaged children, Verner said.
“He was always trying to help somebody, even if it didn’t help him or help us. He wanted to take somebody to lunch. He wanted to make sure that everybody was having a good day,” Cecil said. “He was just a terrific guy looking out to have a good time in life and be fair with people. I’m going to miss him a lot.”
Nick Sullivan covers the City of Charlotte for The Observer. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina, and he previously covered education for The Arizona Republic and The Colorado Springs Gazette.
Chris Rea, the British singer-songwriter best known for the hit “Driving Home for Christmas,” has died at the age of 74, his family announced on Monday.
“It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of beloved Chris,” said a statement on behalf of his wife and two children, the BBC reported. “He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family.”
Additional details were not immediately available.
British singer Chris Rea performs live on stage during a concert at the Tempodrom on October 30, 2017, in Berlin, Germany.
Frank Hoensch/Redferns via Getty
Christopher Anton Rea was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough, in northeast England, to an Italian father and Irish mother. He was one of seven children.
He came late to the guitar, picking one up at 21, and played in bands before going solo.
Rea found fame in the 1980s in Britain with hits such as “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” and “Let’s Dance.”
Throughout his career, Rea recorded 25 solo albums, two of which — “The Road to Hell” in 1989 and “Auberge” in 1991 — went to No. 1 in the country. The song he is probably most well-known for in the U.S., “Fool (If You Think It’s Over),” earned Rea a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 1979.
“Driving Home for Christmas,” first released in 1986, became one of the U.K.’s most loved festive songs and featured in a Marks and Spencer’s TV advertisement this year.
According to the BBC, the family was known locally for Camillo’s ice cream factory and cafes, which his father owned.
The mayor of Middlesbrough, Chris Cooke, paid tribute to Rea on Monday, saying the singer “leaves behind a brilliant legacy.”
“Chris Rea was deeply proud of his Middlesbrough roots and the people of our town were equally proud to call him one of their own,” he said, according to the BBC. “Millions of people around the world will listen to his music tonight. His songs helped put Middlesbrough on the map and he leaves behind a brilliant legacy.”
He had suffered from health problems, including pancreatic cancer, and in 2016, he suffered a stroke. In more recent years, he turned away from pop and released several bluesy records.
Joe Ely, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who helped spearhead Texas’ progressive country movement in the 1970s, has died, his representative confirmed to Rolling Stone. Ely died from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s, and pneumonia at his home in Taos, New Mexico. He was 78.
As is true of the most revered country icons, Ely lived a long and storied life that was ripe with material for songs. Although his music career technically began with the Flatlanders, the country band he formed with fellow Texans Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock in 1972, Ely really found his audience with his self-titled solo debut in 1977; with each passing year, Ely’s natural lyricism and ear for rock hooks helped push a new type of progressive country to the forefront of the Texas community. In the decades that followed, he went on to collaborate with the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, the Chieftans, and many others.
Born in Amarillo, Texas, on February 9, 1947, Ely and his family relocated to Lubbock where he spent his teenage years attending high school and playing guitar. In his 20s, Ely crossed paths with Gilmore and Hancock and they decided to form a band that would utilize their interests in country, folk, and storytelling. The Flatlanders only released one album, 1973’s All American Music, before disbanding that same year. However, once the three musicians found independent success as solo artists, they regrouped to record a handful of albums together and perform live as a band once again, eventually earning their place in the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame.
When he launched his solo career, Ely settled into country music from an openminded and openhearted place, churning out songs that welcomed everyone into the fold regardless of how familiar they were with the genre. That accessible approach earned him multiple charting albums, with 1981’s Musta Notta Gotta Lotta hitting No. 135 on the Billboard 200 and No. 12 on the Top Country Albums chart. Later on, 1998’s Twistin’ in the Wind reached No. 55, 2003’s Streets of Sin peaked at No. 51, and his 2011 record Satisfied at Last claimed spot No. 46 on the Top Country Albums chart. Yet for all of his beloved originals, one of Ely’s biggest songs was a cover of Robert Early Keen’s “The Road Goes on Forever,” which he tacked onto his 1992 album Love and Danger. His final album, Love and Freedom, came out in February 2025.
Joseph Byrd, the co-founder, composer, and bandleader of the psych-rock outfit United States of America, has died, reports The New York Times. His family confirmed the news in a notice to The Los Angeles Times, stating that Byrd died on November 2 at home in Medford, Oregon. He was 87.
United States of America wrote songs that were equal parts hypnotic and otherworldly, pushing listeners to reconsider what they could take away from music. Although the band only released one album during their brief two-year-long run from 1967 to 1968, United States of America earned not just a cult following, but credit for their traceable impact on the evolution of psych-rock and experimental pop, likely influencing the wave of Krautrock that would follow as well as bands like Stereolab, Broadcast, and Portishead.
As the band’s co-founder alongside vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, Byrd was an innovator in the psych-rock genre and, beforehand, a driven experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles. Born on December 19, 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, Byrd was raised in Tucson, Arizona, where he learned how to play accordion and vibraphone, joined a number of pop and country bands, and tried his hand at writing song arrangements. Byrd quickly scaled his way through academics, going from University of Arizona to study composition, to a graduate program at Stanford University, before leaping to University of California, Berkeley. Over the years, Byrd studied under Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and eventually John Cage, the latter of whom spent additional time tutoring him in New York City.
Byrd felt at home in New York City’s flourishing arts scene, debuting his first concert in 1961 in Yoko Ono’s apartment thanks to a hand from La Monte Young. Later that same year, he worked as an assistant to composer Virgil Thomson and, come 1962, performed minimal music compositions during his own recital at Carnegie Hall. Byrd left for Los Angeles in 1963 with his then-girlfriend Dorothy Moskowitz. It was there that he joined the communist party, started a blues band with his new friend Linda Ronstadt, and began producing experimental arts events. Enthralled by the community and organizing shared happenings, Byrd was eager to dream up an even bigger project.
In 1967, Byrd co-created United States of America to see what would happen by combining avant-garde rock music with electronic sound, political radicalism, and performance art. Armed with early synthesizers and an eagerness for tape manipulation, United States of America paraded ahead to push the boundaries of prog-rock and psych-pop in the name of experimentalism. They recorded their first and only album, The United States of America, in December of that year with producer David Rubinson behind the board. Byrd co-wrote the majority of the songs and handled all of the electronic music, electric harpsichord, organ, calliope, piano, and synthesizer. Moskowitz sang lead vocals while Gordon Marron played electric violin and ring modulator, Rand Forbes played fretless electric bass, and Craig Woodson performed drums and percussion.
One of the great directors of a generation, Rob Reiner, is dead at the age of 78. He was found in his Los Angeles, CA, home on Sunday along with his wife, Michele. The deaths are being treated as a homicide, according to TMZ.People reports the couple was allegedly killed by their son, though this has not yet been confirmed by officials.
There will be much more to say as law enforcement finds out the circumstances of the deaths in the coming days. So, for now, let’s just put that aside and talk about Reiner; he provided the world so much joy through his art, it’s almost unprecedented.
Reiner, born in 1947, was the son of the prolific comedian, actor, author, and filmmaker Carl Reiner. He followed in his father’s footsteps, first rising to stardom with a lead role as an actor on the classic comedy, All in the Family. He parlayed that into many behind-the-scenes credits before making his feature directorial debut with This Is Spinal Tap in 1984.
Eventually, the film became a massive cult hit. But, for Reiner, it would be a few more years until he experienced commercial success as he had on TV. That first came in 1986 when he directed the Stephen King adaptation, Stand By Me, which started one of the most incredibly successful runs in Hollywood history.
Next, there was The Princess Bride, regularly cited as one of the greatest fantasy adventure films of all time. Then there was When Harry Met Sally, arguably the best romantic comedy ever. Then Misery, another King adaptation that won its lead actress, Kathy Bates, an Oscar. Then came the star-studded, still-quoted courtroom smash, A Few Good Men.
Many, many films followed, such as The American President, The Bucket List, North, Flipped, and more. Each cemented Reiner’s legacy as an all-time great. Plus, he co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, which itself was responsible for another insane lineup of hits, before it was acquired by Turner in 1993.
I saw Reiner earlier this year at an event in Los Angeles. He was there to talk about two of his films, Stand By Me and Misery, and was as sharp and inspiring as ever. I got emotional being in the same room with the filmmaker, thinking about what his work has meant to me. Now, thinking about him being gone, it hits even harder, because he truly was a one-of-a-kind, generational talent.
Update, December 15, 1:23 a.m.: The original version of this post was updated to include additional clarity about the alleged crime.
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