Category: people

“The death of Beverly Sills was deeply felt yesterday throughout the institutions that make up Lincoln Center. Perhaps no other cultural figure has been so closely identified with it. She performed on its stages, ran its boardrooms and executive suites, and leaned on wealthy New Yorkers in its lobbies to give money for the arts.”

“Silas H. Rhodes, co-founder of a trade school for cartoonists and illustrators in Manhattan that he built into the School of Visual Arts, one of the nation’s most important colleges for art and design, died on Wednesday at his home in Katonah, N.Y. … Mr. Rhodes, who remained active as chairman of the school’s board, died in his sleep after spending a full day at his office, said his son David, who is the school’s president.”

Beverly Sills was “America’s idea of a prima donna. Her plain-spoken manner and telegenic vitality made her a genuine celebrity and an invaluable advocate for the fine arts. Her life embodied an archetypal American story of humble origins, years of struggle, family tragedy and artistic triumph.”

She died of fast-growing lung cancer. “Sills first gained fame with a high-octane career that helped put Americans on the international map of opera stars. Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, she quickly became Bubbles, an endearment coined by the doctor who delivered her, noting that she was born blowing a bubble of spit from her little mouth.”

Ornette Coleman’s music is, if anything, more radical now than it was then, but he was welcomed into the jazz establishment long ago, albeit not to universal approval. This year he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in addition to a Pulitzer prize and MacArthur Foundation “genius”‘ award. He’s not much interested in plaudits. “I don’t want to be at the top. I just want to be alive and useful,” he says.

Frank Dunphy is “the power behind the world’s most famous, most wealthy and most bankable living artist. His job description is business manager, but he is also Damien Hirst’s agent, deal cutter and empire builder. And possibly, as some describe, a father figure.”

Seventy-eight-year-old Beverly Sills is in hospital with lung cancer. “It’s grave. This whole matter of this discovery of cancer has been just about four weeks now. Up until that she had no idea.” Sills was initially admitted to hospital when she broke a rib during a fall at home

The longtime Good Morning America movie critic died of cancer. “Siegel was known for his sense of humor, movie acumen and sharp judgment. He never let an actor off the hook if the performance was lackluster.”

“Mary Ellen Solt, a poet and poetry critic who often arranged words on the page in a visual graphic, resulting in such works as ‘Forsythia,’ a poem that looks like a flowering shrub, has died. … She was a leader in the concrete poetry movement that emerged in the 1960s. It held that the visual effect of letters, words and phrases on a page is an important element in poetry.”

“Margaret Helfand, a Manhattan architect and urban planner who served as president of the American Institute of Architects’ New York chapter, died on June 20. … The cause was complications of colon cancer, said her husband, Jon Turner. Ms. Helfand helped create the Center for Architecture, a hub for exhibitions in the field and the home of the New York chapter of the institute.”