Category: people

He created, and often wrote scripts for, The Flying Nun, The Partridge Family, Love on a Rooftop, The Girl With Something Extra, and Bridget Loves Bernie. (He also wrote 17 episodes of Bewitched.) He also wrote one of the most successful Broadway romantic comedies ever, Same Time, Next Year (1975). – The New York Times

“[He spent] a long career of playing crotchety yet lovable men whose working-class roots mirrored his own. The actor, who worked until the day before his death, had a remarkable fluency with the hardships his characters faced and the humor they derived from those situations. … [His] ability to convey paternal irritation with comedic flair became a hallmark of nearly all his performances.” – The Atlantic

“[He] left a relatively small body of compositions, but his fastidious and elegant works are filled with emotional eddies. He wrote mostly for Western instruments, but made them bend single notes to accommodate the microtonal flexibility of Chinese music.” In addition, as a professor at Columbia University, he trained an entire group of now-prominent Chinese composers, among them Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, and Bright Sheng. – The New York Times

“As Paramount’s head of worldwide production from 1966 to 1975, he was credited with helping lift the company’s sagging fortunes with a staggering variety of popular and often critical hits. … He was long considered one of the savviest production chiefs in Hollywood, but cocaine abuse gradually derailed his career.” – The Washington Post

Mr. Hoffman, whose infamously anarchic work, “Steal This Book,” included tips on how to shoplift, might be amused to have his papers end up in so solemn a setting as a university research library. He was arguably the most emblematic figure of the youthful protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s, a man who helped coin the term “Yippie” and co-founded the group that took that name. But he was always more of a comic provocateur than an ideologue, specializing in thumbing his nose at institutions and formalities in zany ways. – The New York Times

Mr. Feldman, 82, founded the gallery with his wife, Frayda Feldman, in 1971 on East 74th Street. In 1982, the gallery moved to SoHo, establishing an early beachhead in Lower Manhattan that seemed to suit an institution that broke boundaries and championed a wide range of risk-taking artists and their (often political) works. – The New York Times

“‘Bad light makes you unhappy,’ Maurer once said. He repeatedly proclaimed his love for the light bulb, which became his trademark. While other designers saw it as something to keep hidden under the lampshade, Maurer centered his designs on the bulb itself.” – Deutsche Welle

From the kindergarten kid who threw a snowball with a rock in it at her, to her father (the school principal), to Hal Prince humiliating her in front of the entire company of Evita, to John Houseman, who “literally strangled me.” But, she says in a Q&A, “I’ve been made tough by this business in order to survive, in order to continue to perform, which is what I was born to do.” (Oh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber “is the definition of sad sack.”) – The New York Times Magazine

Billionaire philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen said she was chosen from a group of 500 who had been nominated for the prize, narrowed down to a list of five finalists. In an interview, Berggruen, who was not involved in the selection, said Ginsburg was not the “traditional philosopher” the institute has chosen in the past. – Washington Post

“Santos started out playing Latin big band music at resorts in upstate New York’s Catskills, and performed with Machito’s orchestra at New York’s city’s Palladium in the 1950s. Over his long career he collaborated with Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez, Paquito D’Rivera and many others.” – Billboard