Grant Imahara, host of Discovery Channel's "MythBusters" and Netflix's "White Rabbit Project," has died, according to a statement from the Discovery Channel. He was 49 years old.
The host was known in Hollywood for his work in electronics and animatronics.
"We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family," a statement from Discovery sent to CNN said.
TV personality Grant Imahara arrives for the Premiere Of The Asylum's "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!" at iPic Theaters on July 22, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
No cause of death was available.
Former "MythBusters" co-host Adam Savage said on Twitter, "I'm at a loss. No words. I've been part of two big families with Grant Imahara over the last 22 years. Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous, easygoing, and gentle PERSON. Working with Grant was so much fun. I'll miss my friend."
CNN has reached out to Imahara's agent for comment.
Photos: Notable Deaths in 2020
Photos: Notable Deaths in 2020
Little Richard
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Little Richard, one of the chief architects of rock ‘n’ roll whose piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour irrevocably altered popular music while introducing black R&B to white America, died May 9 after battling bone cancer. He was 87.
Jerry Stiller
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Comedy veteran Jerry Stiller, who launched his career opposite wife Anne Meara in the 1950s and reemerged four decades later as the hysterically high-strung Frank Costanza on the smash television show “Seinfeld,” died May 11 at 92.
Don Shula
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Don Shula, who won the most games of any NFL coach and led the Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in league history, died May 4 at his home, the team said. He was 90. Shula surpassed George Halas’ league-record 324 victories in 1993. He retired following the 1995 season with 347 wins, 173 losses and six ties, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
Annie Glenn
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Annie Glenn, the widow of astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and a communication disorders advocate, died May 19 of complications from COVID-19. She was 100. Annie Glenn was thrust into the spotlight in 1962, when her husband became the first American to orbit Earth. She shied away from the media attention because of a severe stutter. Later, she underwent an intensive program at the Communications Research Institute at Hollins College, now Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia, that gave her the skills to control her stutter and to speak in public. By the time 77-year-old John Glenn returned to space in 1998 aboard space shuttle Discovery, Annie showed she had become comfortable in her public role when she acknowledged that she had reservations about the retired senator’s second flight.
John Prine
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John Prine, the ingenious singer-songwriter who explored the heartbreaks, indignities and absurdities of everyday life in “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There” and scores of other indelible tunes, died April 7 at the age of 73. Winner of a lifetime achievement Grammy earlier this year, Prine was a virtuoso of the soul, if not the body. He sang his conversational lyrics in a voice roughened by a hard-luck life, particularly after throat cancer left him with a disfigured jaw.
Katherine Johnson
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Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, died Feb. 24 at age 101. Johnson was one of the “computers” who solved equations by hand during NASA’s early years and those of its precursor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
Bonnie Pointer
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Bonnie Pointer, who in 1969 convinced three of her church-singing siblings to form the Pointer Sisters, which would become one of the biggest acts of the next two decades, died June 8. Pointer often sang lead and was an essential member of the group through its early hits including “Yes We Can Can” and “Fairytale.” She would leave for a short and modest solo career in 1977 as her sisters went on to have several mega-hits without her. She was 69.
Fred Willard
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Fred Willard, the comedic actor whose improv style kept him relevant for more than 50 years in films like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Best In Show” and “Anchorman,” died May 14. He was 86. Willard was rarely a leading man or even a major supporting character. He specialized in small, scene-stealing appearances. As an arrogantly clueless sports announcer on “Best In Show,” his character seemed to clearly know nothing about the dogs he’s supposed to talk about and asks his partner on-air: “How much do you think I can bench?” He also played the character of Frank Dunphy, the goofy father of Phil in the ABC series “Modern Family."
Roy Horn
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Roy Horn of Siegfried & Roy, the duo whose extraordinary magic tricks astonished millions until Horn was critically injured in 2003 by one of the act’s famed white tigers, died May 8. He was 75. Horn died of complications from the coronavirus
Shirley Knight
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Shirley Knight, the Kansas-born actress who was nominated for two Oscars early in her career and went on to play an astonishing variety of roles in movies, TV and the stage, died April 22. She was 83. Knight’s career carried her from Kansas to Hollywood and then to the New York theater and London and back to Hollywood. She was nominated for two Tonys, winning one. In recent years, she had a recurring role as Phyllis Van de Kamp (the mother-in-law of Marcia Cross’ character) in the long-running ABC show “Desperate Housewives,” gaining one of her many Emmy nominations.
Jerry Sloan
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Jerry Sloan, the coach who took the Utah Jazz to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998 on his way to a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame, died May 22. He was 78. Sloan spent 23 seasons coaching the Jazz. The team — with John Stockton and Karl Malone leading the way in many of those seasons — finished below .500 in only one of those years. Sloan won 1,221 games in his career, the fourth-highest total in NBA history.
Larry Kramer
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Larry Kramer, the playwright whose angry voice and pen raised theatergoers’ consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to militant protests in the early years of the epidemic, died May 27 at age 84. Kramer, who wrote “The Normal Heart” and founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, lost his lover to acquired immune deficiency syndrome in 1984 and was himself infected with the virus. He also suffered from hepatitis B and received a liver transplant in 2001 because the virus had caused liver failure.
Johnny Majors
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College Football Hall of Famer Johnny Majors, the coach of Pittsburgh’s 1976 national championship team and a former coach and star player at Tennessee, died June 3. He was 85. Majors compiled a 185-137-10 record in 29 seasons as a head coach at Iowa State (1968-72), Pitt (1973-76, 1993-96) and Tennessee (1977-92). That followed a standout playing career at Tennessee during which he finished second to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung in the 1956 Heisman Trophy balloting.
Bill Withers
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Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day” and “Ain’t No Sunshine," died in Los Angeles from heart complications on March 30, 2020. He was 81.
Brian Dennehy
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Brian Dennehy, the burly actor who started in films as a macho heavy and later in his career won plaudits for his stage work in plays by William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, died April 15. He was 81. Known for his broad frame, booming voice and ability to play good guys and bad guys with equal aplomb, Dennehy won two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe, a Laurence Olivier Award and was nominated for six Emmys. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.
David Stern
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David Stern, the basketball-loving lawyer who took the NBA around the world during 30 years as its longest-serving commissioner and oversaw its growth into a global powerhouse, died Jan. 1. Stern had been involved with the NBA for nearly two decades before he became its fourth commissioner on Feb. 1, 1984. He was 77.
Fred Silverman
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Fred Silverman, the only TV executive who steered programming for each of the Big Three broadcast networks and who brought “All in the Family,” “Roots,” “Hawaii Five-O” and other hit series and miniseries to television during his more than three-decade career, died Jan. 30. He was 82.
Anne Cox Chambers
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Anne Cox Chambers, a newspaper heiress, diplomat and philanthropist who was one of the country's richest women, died Jan. 31 at the age of 100. Chambers, a director of Cox Enterprises Inc., promoted Jimmy Carter's political career and served as U.S. ambassador to Belgium during his presidency. Forbes estimated her net worth several years ago at nearly $17 billion. She was well known for her charitable giving.
Donald Stratton
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Donald Stratton, one of the remaining USS Arizona crew members who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Feb. 15. Stratton was one of the survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese aerial attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii. More than 1,100 crew members died on the battleship. Following Stratton's death, Lou Conter and Ken Potts remain the last living members of the Arizona's crew. Stratton was 97.
Mickey Wright
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Mickey Wright, the golf great with a magnificent swing who won 13 majors among her 82 victories and gave the fledgling LPGA a crucial lift, died Feb. 17. Wright joined the LPGA in 1955 and the Hall of Famer's 82 wins place her second on the all-time list behind Kathy Whitworth, who won 88. The Associated Press in 1999 named Wright the Female Golfer of the Century and Female Athlete of the Year in 1963 and 1964. She was 85.
Barbara "B." Smith
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Barbara “B.” Smith, one of the nation's top black models who went on to open restaurants, launch a successful home products line and write cookbooks, died Feb. 22 at her Long Island home at age 70 after battling early onset Alzheimer's disease. Smith wrote three cookbooks, founded three successful restaurants and launched a nationally syndicated television show and a magazine. Her successful home products line was the first from a black woman to be sold at a nationwide retailer when it debuted in 2001 at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Hosni Mubarak
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Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader who was the autocratic face of stability in the Middle East for nearly 30 years before being forced from power in an Arab Spring uprising, died Feb. 25, state-run TV announced. He was 91. Mubarak was a stalwart U.S. ally, a bulwark against Islamic militancy and guardian of Egypt's peace with Israel. But to the hundreds of thousands of young Egyptians who rallied for 18 days of unprecedented street protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere in 2011, Mubarak was a latter-day pharaoh and a symbol of autocratic misrule.
Clive Cussler
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Clive Cussler, the million-selling adventure writer and real-life thrill-seeker who wove personal details and spectacular fantasies into his page-turning novels about underwater explorer Dirk Pitt, died Feb. 24. Cussler dispatched Pitt and pal Al Giordino on exotic missions highlighted by shipwrecks, treachery, espionage and beautiful women, in popular works including "Cyclops,'' “Night Probe!” and his commercial breakthrough, "Raise the Titanic!" He was 88.
Jack Welch
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Jack Welch, who transformed General Electric Co. into a highly profitable multinational conglomerate and parlayed his legendary business acumen into a retirement career as a corporate leadership guru, died March 1. He was 84. Welch became one of the nation's most well-known and highly regarded corporate leaders during his two decades as GE's chairman and chief executive, from 1981 to 2001. He personified the so-called “cult of the CEO” during the late-1990s boom, when GE's soaring stock price made it the most valuable company in the world.
Bobbie Battista
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Bobbie Battista, who was among the original anchors for CNN Headline News and hosted CNN’s “TalkBack Live,” died March 3. She was 67. During her 1981-2001 career with the cable news company, Battista anchored coverage of major events including the Challenger space shuttle explosion, the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan and the Gulf War.
Wendell Goler
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Wendell Goler, a longtime White House correspondent for Fox News Channel who reported on government since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, died March 5 at age 70. Goler was a Fox News original, joining the network at its inception in 1996 and working his way up to senior White House foreign affairs correspondent. He retired in 2014. He worked for The Associated Press and Washington-area television stations before joining Fox.
Manu Dibango
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Manu Dibango, who fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music, died March 24 with the coronavirus, according to his music publisher. He was 86. The Cameroon-born saxophonist, who gained international fame with his 1972 song “Soul Makossa,” died in a hospital in the Paris region, Thierry Durepaire said. Dibango was hospitalized with an illness “linked to COVID-19,” his official Facebook page said last week.
Jimmy Wynn
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Jimmy Wynn, the diminutive Houston slugger whose monster shots in the 1960s and '70s earned him the popular nickname “The Toy Cannon," died Thursday, March 26. He was 78. Just 5-foot-9, Wynn was packed with power. He hit more than 30 homers twice with Houston, including a career-high 37 in 1967 at the pitcher-friendly Astrodome.
Tom Coburn
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Former U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma family doctor who earned a reputation as a conservative political maverick as he railed against federal earmarks and subsidies for the rich, died March 28. He was 72. Known for bluntly speaking his mind, Coburn frequently criticized the growth of the federal deficit and what he said was excessive government spending endorsed by politicians from both political parties.
John "Bucky" Pizzarelli
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Jazz guitarist John “Bucky” Pizzarelli, who was inducted to the New Jersey Hall of Fame, died April 1 at the age of 94 from the coronavirus. Pizzarelli was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and had a career that spanned eight decades. He showed off his musical chops for former presidents like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and played alongside musical icons like Frank Sinatra.
Patricia Bosworth
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Patricia Bosworth, an actress who once starred alongside Audrey Hepburn and later wrote biographies on several stars including Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, died April 2 due to the coronavirus. She was 86. Bosworth played a nun opposite of Hepburn in the 1959 classic “The Nun’s Story.” Along with penning bios for Brando and Clift, she also wrote biographies on actress Jane Fonda and famed photographer Diane Arbus, who photographed Bosworth in a Greyhound bus advertisement.
Bobby Mitchell
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Bobby Mitchell, the speedy Hall of Famer who became the Washington Redskins' first black player, died April 5. He was 84. Mitchell split his career with the Cleveland Browns and Redskins and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
Honor Blackman
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Honor Blackman, the potent British actress who took James Bond's breath away as Pussy Galore in “Goldfinger" and who starred as the leather-clad, judo-flipping Cathy Gale in “The Avengers,” died in early April. She was 94. Here she is with Sean Connery in 1964.
Earl Graves Sr.
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Earl Graves Sr., who championed black businesses as the founder of the first African American-owned magazine focusing on black entrepreneurs, died April 6. He was 85. Graves launched his magazine, Black Enterprise, in 1970. He later said his aim was to educate, inspire and uplift his readers.
Al Kaline
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Al Kaline, who spent his entire 22-season Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Tigers and was known affectionately as “Mr. Tiger,” died April 6. He was 85. Kaline was the youngest player to win the American League batting title in 1955 at age 20 with a .340 batting average. The right fielder was a 15-time All-Star, won 10 Gold Gloves and was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1980 in his first year of eligibility. The beloved No. 6 later sat behind a microphone as a Tigers broadcaster from 1976 to 2001 and was also a special assistant to the general manager.
Linda Tripp
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Linda Tripp, whose secretly recorded conversations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky led to the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, died April 8 at age 70.
Stirling Moss
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Stirling Moss, a daring, speed-loving Englishman regarded as the greatest Formula One driver never to win the world championship, died April 12. He was 90. A national treasure affectionately known as "Mr. Motor Racing," the balding Moss had a taste for adventure that saw him push cars to their limits across many racing categories and competitions. He was fearless, fiercely competitive and often reckless.
Jim Frey
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Jim Frey, who managed the Kansas City Royals to the 1980 AL pennant and the Chicago Cubs within one win of the 1984 World Series, died April 12. He was 88.
Hank Steinbrenner
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Hank Steinbrenner, the oldest son of George Steinbrenner and one of the four siblings who own the controlling shares of the New York Yankees, died April 14 at age 63.
Willie Davis
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Willie Davis, a Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman who helped the Green Bay Packers win each of the first two Super Bowls, died April 15. He was 85. A 15th-round draft pick from Grambling, Davis began his NFL career by playing both offense and defense for the Cleveland Browns in 1958 and ’59. He had his greatest success after getting traded to the Packers. He remained with the Packers until finishing his NFL career in 1969 as a five-time All-Pro. Although tackles and sacks weren’t measured at the time Davis played, his 22 career fumble recoveries showcased his dominance and big-play ability.
Jane Hull
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Jane Hull, Arizona's first woman elected governor and part of the “Fab Five” celebrated as the nation's first all-female elected state executive branch leadership group, died April 16. She was 84.
Paul O'Neill
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Paul O’Neill, a former Treasury secretary who broke with George W. Bush over tax policy and then produced a book critical of the administration, died April 18 at age 84. A former head of aluminum giant Alcoa, O’Neill served as Treasury secretary from 2001 to late 2002. He was forced to resign after he objected to a second round of tax cuts because of their impact on deficits.
Mike Curtis
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Mike Curtis, a hard-hitting, no-nonsense linebacker who helped the Colts win a Super Bowl during a 14-year NFL career spent predominantly in Baltimore, died April 20 at age 77. Curtis earned the nickname “Mad Dog" because of his fierce play in the middle of a strong Baltimore defense.
Harold Reid
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Harold Reid (pictured at far left), who sang bass for the Grammy-winning country group the Statler Brothers, died April 24 after a long battle with kidney failure. He was 80. The Statler Brothers frequently sang backup for country icon Johnny Cash. Some of their biggest hits included 1965's “Flowers on the Wall” and 1970′s “Bed of Rose’s.” Harold Reid was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. He was also a comedian.
Steve Dalkowski
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Steve Dalkowski, a hard-throwing, wild left-hander whose minor league career inspired the creation of Nuke LaLoosh in the movie “Bull Durham," died April 26. He was 80. Dalkowski never reached the major leagues but was said to have thrown well over 100 mph. Long before velocity was tracked with precision, he spawned legends that estimated he approached 110 mph or 115 mph -- some said even 125 mph.
Irrfan Khan
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Irrfan Khan, a veteran character actor in Bollywood movies and one of India's best-known exports to Hollywood, died April 29. He was 54. Khan played the police inspector in “Slumdog Millionaire” and the park executive Masrani in “Jurassic World.” He also appeared in “The Amazing Spider-Man” and the adventure fantasy “Life of Pi.”
Mari Winsor
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Mari Winsor, a celebrity trainer for Hollywood’s elite who became known as a Pilates guru, died April 28. She was 70. Winsor had been living with the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, since 2013. The petite and energetic Winsor was a featured dancer in music videos including Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” and films such as “Roadhouse” and “Moonwalker.” She released multiple fitness DVDs and ran several Pilates studios in the Los Angeles area catering to the biggest stars. A small sample of her starry client list included Madonna, Steven Spielberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone and Miley Cyrus.
Rishi Kapoor
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Top Indian actor Rishi Kapoor, a scion of a famous Bollywood family, died April 30. He was 67 and had leukemia. He received the National Film Award for his debut role as a child artist in his father’s 1970 film “Mera Naam Joker” ("My Name is Joker"). He acted in more than 90 films. Kapoor’s popular hits included “Bobby"; “Laila Majnu,” a story of legendary Indian lovers; “Karz” (“Debt"); “Chandni” (“Moonlight”); “Kabhi Kabhie” (“Sometimes”); “Saagar” (“Sea”). In 1999, he directed “Aa Ab Laut Chalein” (“Let’s Go Back”).
Tony Allen
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Pioneering drummer Tony Allen, the driver of the Afrobeat sound, died April 30 in Paris at age 79. In an influential career that spanned decades and continents, Allen started drumming in Nigeria's Lagos in the 1960s and formed a partnership with Fela Kuti, composer, singer, bandleader and saxophonist. They are credited with launching the catchy Afrobeat dance music featuring prominent guitars, complex brass harmonies and poly-rhythmic drumming.
Gil Schwartz
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Gil Schwartz, the longtime CBS communications executive who wrote humorous novels and columns under the pen name Stanley Bing, died May 2. He was 68. Schwartz had a distinguished nearly 40-year career in corporate America with CBS, Viacom and Westinghouse Broadcasting. He retired in 2018 from his post as senior executive vice president and chief communications officer of CBS Corporation.
Andre Harrell
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Andre Harrell, the Uptown Records founder who shaped the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late ’80s and ’90s with acts such as Mary J. Blige and Heavy D and also launched the career of mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, died May 7. He was 59.
Betty Wright
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Betty Wright, the Grammy-winning soul singer and songwriter whose influential 1970s hits included “Clean Up Woman" and “Where is the Love,” died May 10 at age 66. Wright had her breakthrough with 1971's “Clean Up Woman,” which combined elements of funk, soul and R&B.
Aimee Stephens
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Aimee Stephens, a Detroit-area woman who was fired by a funeral home after she no longer wanted to be recognized as a man, died May 12, before the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on whether federal civil rights law protects transgender people.
Carolyn Reidy
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Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy, who presided over her company with steady force and a passion for books during a time of frequent and traumatic change, died May 12 at age 71.
Phyllis George
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Phyllis George, the former Miss America who became a female sportscasting pioneer on CBS's “The NFL Today” and served as the first lady of Kentucky, died May 14. She was 70.
Ken Osmond
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Ken Osmond, who on TV’s “Leave It to Beaver,” played two-faced teenage scoundrel Eddie Haskell, a role so memorable it left him typecast and led to a second career as a police officer, died Monday. He was 76.
Eddie Sutton
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Eddie Sutton, the Hall of Fame basketball coach who led three teams to the Final Four and was the first coach to take four schools to the NCAA Tournament, died May 23. He was 84. Elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 3, Sutton was 806-328 in 37 seasons as a Division I head coach — not counting vacated victories or forfeited games -- and made it to 25 NCAA Tournaments.
Christo
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Christo, known for massive, ephemeral public arts projects, died May 31 at his home in New York. He was 84. Along with late wife Jeanne-Claude, the artists' careers were defined by their ambitious art projects that quickly disappeared soon after they were erectedthat andoften involved wrapping large structures in fabric. In 2005, he installed more than 7,500 saffron-colored vinyl gates in New York's Central Park. He wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric with an aluminum sheen in 1995. Their $26 million Umbrellas project erected1,340 blue umbrellas installed in Japan and 1,760 blue umbrellas in Southern California in 1991. They also wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris, the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland and a Roman wall in Italy.
Pat Dye
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College Football Hall of Famer Pat Dye, who took over a downtrodden Auburn football program in 1981 and turned it into a Southeastern Conference power, died June 1. He was 80. When Dye came to Auburn, he inherited a program that was deeply divided after only three winning seasons in the previous six years. In 12 years, he had a 99-39-4 record, Auburn won or shared four conference titles and the Tigers were ranked in The Associated Press' Top 10 five times.
Wes Unseld
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Wes Unseld, the workmanlike Hall of Fame center who led Washington to its only NBA championship and was chosen one of the 50 greatest players in league history, died June 2 after a series of health issues, most recently pneumonia. He was 74.
Sushant Singh Rajput
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Popular Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence June 14, police and Indian media reports said. Rajput, who started as a TV actor, made his Bollywood debut in 2013 with director Abhishek Kapoor in “Kai Po Che," based on the book by Chetan Bhagat. He was 34.
Vera Lynn
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Dame Vera Lynn, the endearingly popular “Forces’ Sweetheart” who serenaded British troops abroad during World War II, died June 18 at 103. During the war and long after, Lynn got crowds singing, smiling and crying with sentimental favorites such as “We’ll Meet Again,” and “The White Cliffs of Dover.”
Jean Kennedy Smith
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Jean Kennedy Smith, the last surviving sibling of President John F. Kennedy and a former ambassador to Ireland, died June 18, her daughter confirmed to The New York Times. She was 92. Smith was the eighth of nine children born to Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, and she tragically outlived several of them by decades.
Tim Steller's opinion: Taxpayers give UA 'Freedom Center' prominence, conflicts after Koch money dwindles
UpdatedYears ago, critics knocked the UA’s Center for the Philosophy of Freedom by saying its wealthy donors were corrupting the university to spread an ideology that benefits the rich.
The Charles Koch Foundation’s annual $200,000 donations were key to the case.
“Institutes like the UA Freedom Center are beachheads in the Koch network assault on our institutions of higher learning,” said a 2017 press release by a University of Arizona group called Kochs Off Campus.
The center, which focuses on a subspecialty known as political philosophy, weathered those political storms on campus, and the private donations were gradually replaced by an unusual, direct appropriation from the Arizona Legislature.
Republican legislators, concerned about homogenous progressivism they perceived at the university, tried to nurture the relatively little libertarian and conservative thought on campus, which they found at the center.
“We thought there was a need for intellectual diversity on campus,” said Jonathan Paton, the former state legislator who as a lobbyist helped guide state appropriations to passage. “Here was something that already existed.”
But it turns out that internally the Legislature’s largesse, pouring up to $2.5 million per year of taxpayer money into the center, created a bit of a monster. The center and its director became bigger than the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, where it was located, and, critics say, bigger than the rules for internal governance of the university.
An external evaluation of the center, completed last year but released through a public-records request on June 2, reveals an academic center that surged to prominence thanks to the fundraising, networking and scholarly prowess of its director, David Schmidtz. The evaluation compliments the center’s performance in hiring, research and outreach, along with fundraising.
“Its journals, the talks it sponsors, and its wealth of scholarly publications at the highest levels of the discipline do not reflect bias or one-sidedness but inclusiveness and excellence,” says the evaluation, written by a committee of four evaluators whose names are redacted from the report.
However, the evaluation also shows how the center concentrated too much power in the hands of Schmidtz, a philosophy professor, who made decisions unilaterally and opaquely. Fellowships were awarded, hires were made, mission statements changed without the input of others, according to the evaluation and interviews with faculty who worked in the center.
“As soon as the money started coming in and it got real, Schmidtz kind of became the Flying Dutchman,” said philosophy professor Daniel Russell, who served in the center from 2010 to 2018. “Relationships were different. He was doing his own thing all the time.”
“As soon as it was public money that got involved, everything changed.”
Between 2009 and 2013, when the center was funded primarily through private donations, it received between $578,000 and $1.05 million. Between 2014 and 2018, the total funding reached as high as $3.9 million, in 2017, most of it from the state and only $58,000 per year for three years from the Charles Koch Foundation. This year, the state budget includes another $2.5 million for the center.
This video was taken on June 17 with the camera pointed to the northwest near the Mount Lemmon Fire District. Video courtesy of Southern Arizo…
Coincidentally or not, a handful of key conflicts came to a head in the year between spring of 2018 and spring of 2019.
For the 2017-2018 academic year, philosophy professor Michael McKenna was named director of the Freedom Center, the first time Schmidtz had not been in that position, but McKenna ended up leaving abruptly.
“Prof. Michael McKenna was one of the successful original hires of the Center, and he continues to contribute to the excellence of the philosophy department,” the external evaluation says. “Yet he seems to have been kept in the dark about various aspects of the functioning of the Center during his term as director, not only by Prof. Schmidtz, but by the administration as well.”
“This fact — along with the pressure put on him to defend the Center during a period where it was under considerable attack and his (at least perceived) lack of control over the Center’s expenditures and activities — led him to resign as director at what he believes was significant personal cost.”
McKenna declined to comment for this column, but Russell, who was there for this episode, said the reason McKenna stepped down is “he found out he’s not been director at all.”
In the fall of 2018, Russell had his own falling-out with Schmidtz over the operation of the center.
According to a grievance Russell filed later, Russell confronted Schmidtz about several unilateral decisions he had made.
“When I asked Schmidtz why he had unilaterally made a project of his own (the high school program) a project of the Freedom Center faculty, he replied to me, ‘It is all my project. Even you are my project.’ Then, when I objected to this, he replied by reminding me that I was free to resign from the Center.”
He eventually did, and reverted to his academic home in the philosophy department. This year, the vice president for research, innovation and impact, Elizabeth Cantwell, denied Russell’s complaint.
As the center’s budget grew, Schmidtz and his colleagues proposed and formed the new department of political economy and moral sciences. The idea was that it, instead of the philosophy department, would be the academic home of the Freedom Center and of the specialized undergraduate major in philosophy, politics, economics and law. Schmidtz committed state funding for the center to the new department, known as PEMS.
Initially, Schmidtz was head of the new department as well as the center, but he was replaced by professor Jerry Gaus when it became evident Schmidtz was overcommitted. When it came time to hire faculty for the new department, that relationship fractured. Here’s how Gaus, the current head of the new department, explained it in an email:
“Originally, the Freedom Center, via its special state allocation, was to fund, directly or indirectly, two of PEMS’s positions. However, in committee meetings about hiring for those positions, I insisted on academic independence from the Freedom Center. Schmidtz strongly opposed the search committee’s hiring recommendations.”
“The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences supported the search committee, and those appointments were made in May-June 2019. Subsequently, in November of 2019 the Freedom Center, with the approval of the University’s central administration, withdrew all funding from PEMS. We now receive no funding whatsoever from the Freedom Center.”
Schmidtz had a slightly different version of the withdrawal of funding, explaining in an email: “Once we all agreed that I would no longer be Head of PEMS, that was the same thing as agreeing that I would no longer have the burdens that go with being Head, including raising funds for it.”
As part of the external evaluation process, the center produced its own internal evaluation document. In it, the center proposed moving out of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and reporting directly to the UA vice president for research.
Such a move, the internal evaluation said, “would be congruent with the Freedom Center’s status as a unit receiving a direct state allocation of funding, as it would position the Center closer to the central administrative functions responsible for state and federal relations.”
The move happened, and the Freedom Center became one of 15 centers and institutions reporting directly to Cantwell. At that level, Russell said, Schmidtz is beyond the reach of the normal university governance.
“He represents $2.5 million every year, and he represents the good graces of the state Legislature,” Russell said. “The money creates a conflict of interest among top administrators. They’re supposed to be overseeing him, but he also brings in $2.5 million a year.”
Schmidtz told me in an email he hasn’t assumed the role of representing the UA to the Legislature, but that the center lends itself to that use.
“I think we are a pivotal part of UA’s case that UA is a leader when it comes to intellectual diversity,” he wrote in an email. “Various administrators have advised me to interpret occasional local opposition as a sign that UA is succeeding in its main mission of being a place for the ‘uncomfortable conversations’ that are the sign of healthy intellectual energy and progress.”
Of course, the money he brings in helps to smooth down any internal opposition the center might raise. In an era of slashed budgets at the UA, that sort of political pull and fundraising acumen will only become more of a superpower.
A roll call of celebrities, leaders and other notable people who have died so far in 2020:
Joel Schumacher
Updated
Joel Schumacher, the eclectic and brazen filmmaker who dressed New York department store windows before shepherding the Brat Pack to the big screen in “St. Elmo's Fire” and steering the Batman franchise into its most baroque territory in “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin,” died June 22 in New York after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 80.
Blaine Kern Sr.
Updated
Blaine Kern Sr., a float builder who was often credited with helping expand New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebration into a giant event known worldwide, died June 25. He was 93.
Milton Glaser
Updated
Milton Glaser, the groundbreaking graphic designer who adorned Bob Dylan’s silhouette with psychedelic hair and summed up the feelings for his native New York with “I (HEART) NY,” died June 26, his 91st birthday. In posters, logos, advertisements and book covers, Glaser’s ideas captured the spirit of the 1960s with a few simple colors and shapes. He was the designer on the team that founded New York magazine with Clay Felker in the late ’60s.
Joe Bugel
Updated
Former Washington Redskins assistant coach Joe Bugel, regarded as one of the top offensive line coaches in NFL history, died June 28. He was 80. Bugel was the architect of “The Hogs,” the dominant offensive lines that helped lead the team to three Super Bowls under Hall of Fame head coach Joe Gibbs.
Carl Reiner
Updated
Carl Reiner, the ingenious and versatile writer, actor and director who broke through as a “second banana” to Sid Caesar and rose to comedy’s front ranks as creator of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and straight man to Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man,” died June 29. He was 98. Reiner was the father of actor-director Rob Reiner, who tweeted that his “heart is hurting. He was my guiding light.” The younger Reiner starred as Archie Bunker’s son-in-law on “All in the Family” and directed “When Harry Met Sally...”
Georg Ratzinger
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The Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI who earned renown in his own right as a director of an acclaimed German boys’ choir, died July 1. He was 96.
Ennio Morricone
Updated
Ennio Morricone, the Oscar-winning Italian composer who created the coyote-howl theme for the iconic Spaghetti Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and often haunting soundtracks for such classic Hollywood gangster movies as “The Untouchables” and the epic “Once Upon A Time In America,” died July 6. He was 91.
Mary Kay Letourneau
Updated
Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who married her former sixth-grade student after she was convicted of raping him in a case that drew international headlines, died July 6. She was 58.
Zindzi Mandela
Updated
Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of South African anti-apartheid leaders Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, died July 13 at age 59.
Hugh Downs
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Hugh Downs, the genial, versatile broadcaster who became one of television’s most familiar and welcome faces with more than 15,000 hours on news, game and talk shows, died July 1 at age 99. “The Guinness Book of World Records” recognized Downs as having logged more hours in front of the camera than any television personality until Regis Philbin passed him in 2004. He worked on NBC's “Today” and “Tonight” shows, the game show “Concentration,” co-hosted the ABC magazine show “20/20” with Barbara Walters and the PBS series “Over Easy” and “Live From Lincoln Center.”
Nick Cordero
Updated
Nick Cordero, a Tony Award-nominated actor who specialized in playing tough guys on Broadway in such shows as “Waitress,” “A Bronx Tale” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” died July 5 in Los Angeles after suffering severe medical complications after contracting the coronavirus. He was 41.
Charlie Daniels
Updated
Charlie Daniels, who went from being an in-demand session musician to a staple of Southern rock with his hit “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” died July 6 at age 83. Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan's “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Daniels performed at White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troops in the Middle East.
Kelly Preston
Updated
Kelly Preston, who played dramatic and comic foil to actors ranging from Tom Cruise in “Jerry Maguire” to Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Twins,” died after a battle with breast cancer July 12, husband John Travolta said. She was 57. Preston had a lengthy acting career in movies and television, starring opposite Kevin Costner in the 1999 film “For the Love of the Game.” In 2003, she starred in “What a Girl Wants” and as the mom in the live-action adaptation of “The Cat in the Hat.” The following year she appeared in the music video for Maroon 5′s “She Will Be Loved.”
Naya Rivera
Updated
Naya Rivera, a singer and actor who played a gay cheerleader on the hit TV musical comedy “Glee,” was found dead July 13 in a Southern California lake. She was 33. Rivera began acting at a young age, but she rose to national attention playing a lesbian teen on “Glee,” which aired from 2009 until 2015 on Fox.
Grant Imahara
Updated
Grant Imahara, the longtime host of Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters,” died from a brain aneurysm July 13 at age 49. Along with his “MythBusters” fame, Imahara was known for starring on Netflix’s “White Rabbit Project.” He became popular in Hollywood for his talents in electronics and recently showcased his creation of a fully animatronic Baby Yoda.
C.T. Vivian
Updated
The Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights veteran who worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and later led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, died July 17 at age 95. His civil rights work stretched back more than six decades, to his first sit-in demonstrations in the 1940s in Peoria, Ill. He met King soon after the budding civil rights leader’s victory in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Phyllis Somerville
Updated
Phyllis Somerville, an actor with a lengthy career of roles in film, television and Broadway productions, died July 16. She was 76. On television, Somerville appeared in “The Big C,” “NYPD Blue” and was in films like “Arthur” and was among “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” cast members nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award.
John Lewis
Updated
John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died July 17. He was 80. Lewis was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had the greatest impact on the movement. He was best known for leading some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
Jim Lehrer
Updated
Jim Lehrer, co-host and later host of the nightly PBS "NewsHour" that for decades offered a thoughtful take on current events, died Thursday, Jan. 23. He was 85. Lehrer died “peacefully in his sleep,” according to PBS. He had suffered a heart attack in 1983 and more recently, had undergone heart valve surgery in April 2008.
Terry Jones
Updated
Terry Jones, a founding member of the anarchic Monty Python troupe who was hailed by colleagues as “the complete Renaissance comedian" and “a man of endless enthusiasms,” died Tuesday, Jan. 7, after a battle with dementia. He was 77.
Neil Peart
Updated
Neil Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the influential Canadian band Rush, died Tuesday, Jan. 7. He was 67. The band confirmed on Twitter that Peart had "lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer." Peart placed fourth on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time.
Olivia de Havilland
Updated
Olivia de Havilland, the doe-eyed actress beloved to millions as the sainted Melanie Wilkes of “Gone With the Wind,” but also a two-time Oscar winner and an off-screen fighter who challenged and unchained Hollywood’s contract system, died July 26 at her home in Paris. She was 104. De Havilland was among the last of the top screen performers from the studio era, and the last surviving lead from “Gone With the Wind,” an irony, she once noted, since the fragile, self-sacrificing Wilkes was the only major character to die in the film.
Regis Philbin
Updated
Regis Philbin, the genial host who shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” died July 24 at age 88. Celebrities routinely stopped by Philbin’s eponymous syndicated morning show, but its heart was in the first 15 minutes, when he and co-host Kathie Lee Gifford — on “Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee” from 1985-2000 — or Kelly Ripa — on “Live! with Regis and Kelly” from 2001 until his 2011 retirement — bantered about the events of the day. Viewers laughed at Philbin’s mock indignation over not getting the best seat at a restaurant the night before, or being henpecked by his partner.
Edward "Kookie" Byrnes
Updated
Edd Byrnes, who played cool kid Kookie on the hit TV show “77 Sunset Strip,” scored a gold record with a song about his character’s hair-combing obsession and later appeared in the movie “Grease” as TV host Vince Fontaine, died Wednesday, Jan. 8. He was 87.
Charles Evers
Updated
Charles Evers, who led an eclectic life as a civil rights leader, onetime purveyor of illegal liquor in Chicago, history-making Black mayor in deeply segregated Mississippi and contrarian with connections to prominent national Democrats and Republicans, died July 22. He was 97.
Nick Gordon
Updated
Nick Gordon, who was found liable in the death of his ex-partner Bobbi Kristina Brown, died Wednesday, Jan. 1. He was 30. Gordon's death comes nearly five years after Brown, the daughter of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in January 2015. The 22-year-old died after six months in a coma.
John Karlen
Updated
Emmy-winning character actor John Karlen, known for his roles on the television series “Dark Shadows” and “Cagney & Lacey,” died Wednesday, Jan. 22 of congestive heart failure at a hospice in Burbank, friend and family spokesman Jim Pierson said. He was 86. Karlen is pictured in center.
Annie Ross
Updated
Annie Ross, a popular jazz singer in the 1950s before crossing over into a successful film career, died July 21. She was 89. Ross rose to fame as the lead vocalist of one of jazz’s most well-respected groups, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. The trio became known for the 1952 hit “Twisted,” a tune by saxophonist Wardell Gray and written by Ross.
