scorecardresearch Skip to main content

Latest Headlines in Obituaries


Barbara Mullen, who rose to the heights of the modeling world, dies at 96

Barbara Mullen vaulted from a job at a New York beauty parlor to the pinnacle of the genteel modeling world of the 1950s.

William Pounds, MIT Sloan School dean who chaired a key Vietnam War-era panel, dies at 95

“The thing that everybody would say was he never met a stranger,” said Dr. Pounds’s sister, Dr. Lois Pounds Oliver of Durham, N.C. “He would talk to anyone.”

Erwin Olaf, photographer with an eye for the theatrical, dies at 64

A contemporary Dutch photographer, Erwin Olaf was known for the precision of his staged photographs of both countercultural figures and Dutch royalty.

Gita Mehta, literary chronicler of modern India, dies at 80

Gita Mehta's incisive novels and nonfiction books subverted Western stereotypes while exploring the history, culture and contradictions of modern India.

Stephen Gould, tenor best known for tackling Wagner, dies at 61

Stephen Gould, a tenor who after a detour into musical theater established himself as a leading interpreter of the operas of Richard Wagner in performances at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany and elsewhere, died Tuesday in Chesapeake, Virginia. He was 61.

Giorgio Napolitano, former Italian president and first ex-Communist in that post, has died at 98

Not only was Giorgio Napolitano the first former Communist to rise to Italy’s presidency, he was also the first person to be elected twice to the mostly ceremonial post.

Jango Edwards, clown who challenged his art form, dies at 73

He helped lead a back-to-basics revival of clowning, embracing a thread of transgressive traditions running from medieval court jesters to Weimar burlesque to Jerry Lewis.

Robert Klane, writer of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’ Dies at 81

A comic novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker, Robert Klane, had a taste for gleeful vulgarity and wrote the screenplay for “Weekend at Bernie’s,” the 1989 cult film about two young insurance company employees who create the illusion that their murdered boss is still alive.