Tag Archives: Deaths (Obituaries)

Leon N. Cooper, a Nobel-winning physicist who helped unlock the secret of how some materials can convey electricity without resistance, a phenomenon called superconductivity, and who did pioneering work in understanding how memory and the brain work, died on Wednesday at his home in Providence, R.I. He was 94. His …

Gary Indiana, the elfin novelist, cultural critic, playwright and artist whose crackling prose and lacerating wit captured the ravages of the AIDS crisis, Manhattan’s downtown art scene, lurid true crimes and his own search for love, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 74. The cause was …

Philip G. Zimbardo, a towering figure in social psychology who explored how good people turn evil in the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, which devolved into chaos after college students acting as guards started abusing other students acting as prisoners, died on Oct. 14 at his home in San Francisco. He …

Patti McGee, whose thrill-seeking activities as a teenager included surfing off the coast of San Diego and skateboarding on the city’s streets, and who ultimately became skating’s first female national champion, died on Oct. 16 at her home in Brea, Calif., in northern Orange County. She was 79. Her daughter, …

Bruce Nathan Ames, a biochemist who discovered a revolutionary method of detecting potential carcinogens, paving the way for the banning of many commonly used chemicals, died on Oct. 5 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 95. His wife, Giovanna Ferro-Luzzi Ames, said his death, in a hospital, was from complications after …

Michael Valentine, an electrical engineer, loved to drive fast in his MGB sports car. But in 1974, after a national highway speed limit of 55 miles per hour was mandated as a fuel conservation measure, he believed that a “holy war” had begun: speed-seeking drivers against police officers trying to …

Toni Vaz, who cut a path as one of the first Black stuntwomen in Hollywood, with appearances in more than 50 movies, and then created the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards to recognize the often unsung work of Black writers and performers, died on Oct. 4 in Los Angeles. She was 101. …

Libby Titus, a singer-songwriter known for her wistful ballad “Love Has No Pride,” covered by Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt, and for her collaborations with Burt Bacharach, Dr. John and her husband, Donald Fagen, of Steely Dan, died on Oct. 13. She was 77. Mr. Fagen announced her death on …

Sammy Basso, an advocate for research into progeria, an ultrarare fatal disease that causes rapid aging in children, who was known for living with gusto and humor with the condition as he faced the certainty of premature death, died on Oct. 5 near his home in Tezze sul Brenta, in …

Nicholas Daniloff, an American news correspondent whose 1986 arrest in Moscow on trumped-up espionage charges ignited a political firestorm in the United States and an international crisis in the latter stages of the Cold War, died on Thursday at an assisted living facility in Cambridge, Mass. He was 89. His …