fb-pixel Skip to main content

Rosalyn Koo, 94, dies; fund-raising powerhouse for Chinese communities

Ms. Koo had had a successful career as the chief financial officer and a partner of MBT Associates, a large architectural firm based in San Francisco, when in 1988 she retired, at age 62, to devote herself to good works. She became the kind of funding angel of whom nonprofits dream.

Walter Gretzky, father of NHL star Wayne Gretzky, dies at 82

Wayne Gretzky said in a statement Thursday night that his father battled Parkinson’s disease and other health issues the past few years.

Benjamin J. Fernandez, photojournalist and mentor, dies at 84

Benedict J. Fernandez, a professed “photo-anthropologist” who captured the persona of Martin Luther King Jr. and the fervor of the King era’s protest movements before mentoring a generation of professional photographers, died Jan. 31 at his home in Oxford, New York. He was 84.

Bunny Wailer, reggae luminary and last Wailers member, dies

Wailer formed The Wailers in 1963 with late superstars Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. He died at 73.

Vernon Jordan, former Clinton adviser, has died
Jordan rose from humble beginnings in the segregated South to become a champion of civil rights before reinventing himself as a Washington insider and corporate influencer.

Michael Downing, whose books illuminated his illness and the lives of others, dies at 62
A novelist and teacher, Mr. Downing "taught not only writing, he taught a way to be,” a colleague said.

Latest Headlines in Obituaries

Sheila Washington dies at 61; helped exonerate Scottsboro Boys

Ms. Washington became the catalyst behind the creation of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center and then won something few thought possible — not only posthumous pardons for the defendants but also full exonerations for the history books.

Claudette White, innovative tribal judge, dies at 49

As a tribal judge, she practiced a judicial model known as restorative justice, which aims to heal and rehabilitate offenders and their victims as an alternative to punishment.

Raymond Cauchetier, whose camera caught the New Wave, dies at 101

The photographs that made his global reputation — a pictorial record of the iconoclastic New Wave cinema from 1959 to 1968 — were taken in his capacity as a low-paid set photographer.

‘Meyers Manx’ dune buggy creator dead at 94

Bruce Meyers was hanging out at Pismo Beach on California’s Central Coast one afternoon in 1963 when he saw something that both blew his mind and changed his life: a handful of old, stripped-down cars bouncing across the sand.

Loretta Whitfield, creator of a doll with a difference, dies at 79

“The Whitfields’ Baby Whitney was ahead of its time in mass-producing a baby doll that wasn’t just a white doll colored brown but a doll that little Black girls could truly identify with,” Debbie Behan Garrett, an expert on the history of Black dolls, said in an interview.

Man who played Duke Chapel bells for 50 years dies

Mr. Hammond's music was heard each weekday by students leaving the day’s classes and, more recently, by alumni who could watch some of his performances online.

Jon Westling, former president of Boston University, dies at 78

Mr. Westling was BU's president from 1996 to 2002, and previously had been interim president on two occasions.

Annabel Battistella, whose Combat Zone performance as Fanne Foxe fueled a Washington sex scandal, dies at 84

The relationship between Annabel Battistella, who performed as Fanne Foxe, and powerful congressman Wilbur Mills became a reference point for future political sex scandals.