Not only was Walter George Bruhl Jr. likely a lovely person, he was the kind of person that surrounded himself with people who have great senses of humor – plus he knew how to write a good obit.
Earlier this evening, the United Farmworkers of America announced that Jessie Lopez De La Cruz, one of the most important women in the farmworkers movement, died in her Kingsburg, Calif. home on, of all the days Fate could choose at the roulette table, Labor Day. She was 93.
Hey, did any notable women die this year? Eh, not that many, according to our major national newspapers, most of which release lists of significant deaths every year. Countless women (sorry, we can't tell you who, since we don't know who they are) are rolling in their graves thanks to Mother Jones' in-depth look at…
"She is from New York. She is Jewish. She is a woman," wrote one of the graduate programs to which Rosalyn Yalow applied. Their loss: She went on to become the second woman to win a Nobel prize in medicine.
According to a report by Jeff Zeleny at the New York Times, the first major female vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, passed away today at the age of 75 due to complications from blood cancer at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Singer Debbie Friedman died Sunday of complications of pneumonia, but her progressive, feminist influence on Jewish folk music will live on.
Dr. Louise Reiss masterminded the Baby Tooth Survey, which proved that radioactive fallout had entered Americans' teeth, and led to an international ban on atmospheric nuclear testing. She died on New Year's Day at her Florida home.
The author, artist, and last wife of Norman Mailer died of gastrointestinal cancer. Her memoir, published this year, detailed her affair with Bill Clinton and described how Mailer returned her first love poems marked up with corrections in red pencil.
Still upset about that lack of gender equality in book reviews? Consider this more frightening and fundamental imbalance: so far in the month of August, the NYT has published 78 obituaries. And only six of them were for women.
Singer and actress Lena Horne, whose successful yet restricted career exemplified the racist climate of forties and fifties show business, died last night at the age of 92.
Dorothy Provine, the "shapely" actress who starred in the film It's A Mad, Mad World and played the title roll as a notorious bank robber in The Bonnie Parker Story, died on Sunday at the age of 75. [NYT]
CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, 59, died on Sunday after years of fighting cancer. Moth, who changed her name to "have her own" and survived sniper fire in Sarajevo, was famous among colleagues for her fearlessness and her flair. [WaPo, CNN]
The tributes are pouring in from fashion editors, designers, and Lady Gaga.
Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby and Davey and Goliath, died at 88 on Friday. Gumby debuted in 1956 and starred in several TV series, a feature film, and an Eddie Murphy SNL skit, which Clokey reportedly adored. [NYT]
Charles Kleibacker, a master of bias construction who worked at Lanvin before founding his own label, has died. Isabel Toledo called Kleibacker — one of the first American designers who didn't copy Europeans — "a gift, a treasure." [ColumbusDispatch, WWD]
Alice S. Rossi, feminist scholar, noted sociologist, and founding member of the National Organization for Women, passed away on Tuesday in Northampton, Mass. Rossi was the author of several influential articles, including "Equality Between the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal." [NYT]
Irving Penn died yesterday, the last of the great men fashion photographers of the mid-20th Century. Newton and Avedon each died in 2004. Lillian Bassman is still around; but she doesn't shoot. Here's why Penn's aesthetic will be missed:
Maria Amelia Lopez, a Spanish great-grandmother who called herself "the world's oldest blogger," died today in her home at the age of 97, leaving more than 1.5 million readers from around the world mourning her passing.
A new study finds that the obituary photographs people choose are getting progressively younger - even as we're dying older. The number of outdated obit pics more than doubled between 1967 and 1997. [UPI, Obit]
In 1930, 11-year-old Venetia Phair suggested that the newly discovered planet beyond Neptune be named Pluto. On April 30, she died in her home in Banstead, England at the age of 90.
