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KIM STANLEY Kim Stanley, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nommed actress perhaps best known for her stage work, died Aug. 20 of uterine cancer in Santa Fe, N.M. She was 76. Born Patricia [...]

EUDORA WELTY Master short-story writer and novelist Eudora Welty, noted for her use of imagery, dialogue and wit, died July 23 at a hospital near her home in Jackson, Miss. [...]

HENRI ALEKAN Henri Alekan, the masterful French cinematographer whose career spanned much of the century and a stunning range of visual styles, died June 15 in Auxerre following a brief […]

PERRY COMO Perry Como, the crooning baritone barber famous for his relaxed vocals, cardigan sweaters and television Christmas specials, died May 12 at his home in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Fla. […]

OTIS L. GUERNSEY JR. Otis L. Guernsey Jr., editor of the 'Best Plays' series for 36 years, died of pancreatic cancer May 2 at his home in Woodstock, Vt. He [...]

STAN MARGULIES Stan Margulies, who produced two of the most watched miniseries in television history, "Roots" and "The Thorn Birds," died Feb. 27 in Los Angeles following a bout with […]

CARL BARKS Cartoonist Carl Barks, creator of the cartoon character Scrooge McDuck and the artist who drew the Donald Duck comicbook strip for 24 years, developing the character far beyond [...]

PAT NOTARO Pat Notaro, exec VP and general sales manager for Sony Pictures Releasing and a well-liked 30-year veteran of exhibition and distribution, died Feb. 27 of a heart attack. [...]

JOSEPH HELLER Joseph Heller, novelist, TV writer, playwright and screenwriter whose darkly comic first novel (later a movie) "Catch-22" defined the paradox of the modern no-win dilemma and added a […]

MILT JACKSON Jazz vibraphonist and master improviser Milt Jackson, a 40-year veteran of the Modern Jazz Quartet who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk and others in a [...]

French-born composer Maurice Jarre's career spans 50 years and a staggering 175 scores for pics as diverse as David Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia,' 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,' 'Fatal Attraction' and [...]

MULTIHYPHENATES PETER SHAW Peter Shaw, producer, thesp, agent and husband of 54 years to actress Angela Lansbury, died Jan. 31 of congestive heart failure at home in L.A. He was [...]

PHIL OESTERMAN LEGIT PRODUCER Phil Oesterman, director of the upcoming musical "Urban Cowboy," died July 30 of heart failure at his home in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 64. Oesterman, […]

SEYMOUR SOLOMON VANGUARD RECORDS CO-FOUNDER Seymour Solomon, who co-founded Vanguard Records with his brother and made some of the recordings that sparked the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s. [...]

Although there are those today who can rightly be called showbiz moguls --giants who dominate the industry and wield great global media power--they came along too late to match the [...]

HARLAN HOWARD PROLIFIC COUNTRY SONGWRITER Top country songwriter Harlan Howard, who wrote 'I Fall to Pieces,' 'Busted' and more than 100 other hits, died suddenly at his Nashville home March [...]

AVERY SCHREIBER COMIC-ACTOR Cab. Taxi. Cab." "Taxicab." Thus would begin the most popular routine of comedy team Burns and Schreiber, in which Jack Burns would play an obnoxious, bigoted customer […]

George Hickenlooper, 47, director of 'Casino Jack' starring Kevin Spacey. Oct. 30. Jerry Back, 81, composer of 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Nov. 3. Shannon Tavarez, 11 ,thesp in Broadway's 'The [...]

French composer Maurice Jarre, who won Oscars for the music of 'Lawrence of Arabia,' 'Doctor Zhivago' and 'A Passage to India,' died of cancer March 28 in Malibu. He was [...]

Angela Morley, three-time Emmy winner and two-time Oscar nominee for her film and television music and one of England's best-known arrangers, died Jan. 14 in Scottsdale, Ariz., of complications from [...]

Irving Gertz, composer for dozens of B movies and sci-fi TV in the 1950s and '60s, died Nov. 14 in Los Angeles. He was 93. Gertz contributed music to more [...]

Neal Hefti, a top jazz arranger of the 1940s and '50s and Grammy-winning composer of the 'Batman' and 'Odd Couple' themes, died Oct. 11 at his home in Toluca Lake, [...]

Robert Hazard, who wrote the 1983 Cyndi Lauper hit 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,' died Aug. 5. He was 59. His wife, Susan, said he died unexpectedly after surgery at [...]

Television composer and arranger David Kahn, who composed the theme song for 'Leave It to Beaver' and sang on the 'Addams Family Theme,' died July 3 in Woodland Hills, Calif. [...]

Alexander (Sandy) Courage, composer of the original 'Star Trek' theme and an Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated arranger for TV and movies, died May 15 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. He was 88 and [...]

Earle H. Hagen, Emmy-winning composer of some of the most familiar musical themes in television history, died of natural causes May 26 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 88. Hagen [...]

Leonard Rosenman, a two-time Oscar-winning composer who was credited with helping to modernize film music in the 1950s and '60s, died March 4 of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, [...]

Pianist and arranger George Greeley, who composed the theme for 'My Favorite Martian,' died of emphysema May 26 in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 89. Born in Westerly, R.I., Greeley [...]

Cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, considered one of the finest cellists of his era, died April 27 in Moscow of intestinal cancer. He was 80. He had returned to Russia [...]

Herman Stein, who composed music for many of Universal's 1950s science-fiction and horror films, died of congestive heart failure March 15 in Los Angeles. He was 91. As a staff [...]

Emmy-nommed composer Robert Prince died March 4 in Los Angeles after a brief illness. He was 78. Prince scored dozens of TV series from the 1960s to the 1980s and [...]

Czech pop composer and former rock star Karel Svoboda, who scored dozens of films and musicals over four decades, was found dead at his home in Jevany, Czech Republic, apparently [...]

Ray Evans, who with his partner Jay Livingston wrote some of the best-known movie songs of the 1940s and '50s and won three Oscars, died Feb. 15 after suffering an [...]

Bollywood film composer O.P. Nayyar died of cardiac arrest Jan. 27 in Mumbai, India. He was 81. Known for toe-tapping numbers such as classic disco fave 'Mera naam Chin Chin [...]

Harvey R. Cohen, two-time Emmy-winning composer, arranger and big-band leader, died Jan. 14 after a heart attack at his home in Agoura Hills, Calif. He was 55. Cohen's two Emmys [...]

Shirley Walker, an Emmy-winning composer who also scored more major-studio feature films than any other American woman, died of complications from a stroke Nov. 30 in Reno, Nev. She was [...]

Basil Poledouris, the Emmy-winning composer of 'Lonesome Dove' and composer for such films as 'Conan the Barbarian,' 'Free Willy' and 'The Blue Lagoon,' died of cancer Nov. 8 in Los [...]

Sir Malcolm Arnold, the first British composer to win an Academy Award, died Sept. 23 in London after a short illness. He was 84. Arnold, who won an Oscar for [...]

Moacir Santos, a leading arranger in Brazil in the 1950s who was credited with shaping the country's harmonic language, died Aug. 6 in Pasadena, Calif. He was 80. A composer, […]

Jazz pianist and composer Hilton Ruiz, died June 6 in New Orleans. He was 54. Ruiz, who came to New Orleans to work on a Hurricane Katrina benefit recording, had [...]

Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, whose music appeared in several Stanley Kubrick films and was championed by conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, died June 12 in Vienna. He was 83. A survivor [...]

Musician, composer and producer Rick Rhodes died of brain cancer Nov. 2 in Oak Park, Calif. He was 54. Rhodes won six Emmys for his work as a composer on [...]

Composer, author and Variety theater critic Joel Hirschhorn died Sept. 17 of a heart attack in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 67. With his frequent collaborator Al Kasha, Hirschhorn won [...]

Composer Richard Loring died Aug. 28 of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 86. Loring wrote songs (with lyricist Diane Lampert) for Universal films including 'Operation Petticoat,' 'The Snow Queen' [...]

Lyle 'Spud' Murphy, prolific Hollywood composer-arranger best known for developing a composing system widely used by professional musicians, died Aug. 5 in Hollywood of surgery complications. He was 96. Murphy, [...]

Robert Wright, a composer and lyricist who collaborated with George Forrest on the scores for such Broadway musicals as 'Kismet,' 'Song of Norway' and 'Grand Hotel,' died July 27 in [...]

Grammy-winning composer, arranger and conductor Joe Harnell died of heart failure July 14 in Los Angeles. He was 80. Harnell won a 1962 Grammy Award fox' his recording of 'Fly [...]

Pianist, composer and caberet entertainer Dickson Hughes died June 18 in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 82. With his writing partner Richard Stapley, Hughes wrote the first musical version of […]