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Charles Osgood Remembers 2006's Departed

Sunday Morning anchor Charles Osgood pays tribute to those who died in 2006.



This year many influential people left this world. As 2006 comes to an end, we celebrate their lives and give thanks for what they left us.

James Brown left us just this week. The Godfather of Soul and funk and disco and rock — James Brown was one of the most influential musicians of our time. Mostly, he just made us feel good.

Filmmaker Robert Altman made audiences think. He was an adventurous director of films like "The Player," "M*A*S*H." and "Nashville." Thank you, Robert Altman, you made it look so easy.

Golfer Byron Nelson also made it look so easy. Before Tiger or Jack or Arnie, there was Lord Byron. In just one year he won an astounding 18 tournaments, 11 of them in a row. Imagine that.

Betty Friedan imagined a society of equal rights for women and men and fought to make it so. Her book, "the Feminine Mystique," became the manifesto of the women's movement.

Shelley Winters, your star shone brightly for more than 50 years. You could be sexy or shrill, violent or vulnerable, but always memorable.

We'll never find another singer like Lou Rawls. Classy. Smooth. "The silkiest chops in the singing game," said Frank Sinatra. And he was right.

Nothing smooth about Wilson Pickett. "Wicked Pickett," they called him, all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Buck O'Neil never made it into baseball's Hall of Fame. He missed it by one vote just this year. A star of the Negro leagues, first as a player and then a manager, he became the first black coach in the major leagues. Buck O'Neil was a trailblazer.

Susan Butcher's trail went through the Alaska wilderness. Four times in five years, she and her team won the grueling Iditarod sled-dog race. She was a champion musher.

Red Auerbach was a dogged competitor. He turned his Boston Celtics into one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports. "You'll never be a legend unless you win," he once said. Red Auerbach was a legend.

So was Bob Mathias. He won the Olympic decathlon in 1948 when he was just 17. Four years later, he won the gold again.

Boxer Floyd Patterson won Olympic gold, then was the first ever to become heavyweight champion twice.

Trumpet player Maynard Ferguson could really hit those high notes.

Johnny Apple gave us the lowdown on wars, politics and living well for 40 years in The New York Times.

The wonderful words of Comden and Green. Adolph Green died four years ago and now Betty Comden is gone too. They wrote the lyrics to scores of songs for Broadway and Hollywood. What a team were Comden and Green.

And what a team were the Nicholas Brothers. Fayard taught himself to dance, then he taught his baby brother Harold. Fayard left us this year, six years after his brother. No one could do what the Nicholas Brothers did. Not then. Not now. They were two of a kind.

Ann Richards was one brassy politician. Her 1988 put down of Vice President George Bush put her on the road to the Texas statehouse. "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth," she said then.

Jeane Kirkpatrick gave us tough talk at the United Nations. Milton Friedman gave us the theory of free-market economics. William Styron gave us provocative tales that grappled with the moral questions of his day. We said goodbye to him this year.

It was much too soon to say goodbye to Dana Reeve. She was an actress in her own right, but it was her supporting role as wife, and then widow, that touched us so.

Joe Rosenthal couldn't fight in World War II. Bad eyes, they said. But what he saw through his camera became perhaps the most memorable picture of America's fighting men — Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima. Thank you, Joe Rosenthal, for an image we can never forget.

Paul Douglas and James Brolan captured images of war too. Last Memorial Day, the CBS News team was with American soldiers on the streets of Baghdad. The assignment: to see if war took a holiday. Sadly, it didn't. Thank you, Paul and James, with all our hearts.

And thank you to all who paid so dear a price this year. More than 900 men and women of our armed forces died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Too many to name. Too many to forget.

Hugh Thompson died this year. In another war, in another time, Hugh Thompson showed us the meaning of courage. In 1968 the army helicopter pilot and his crew rescued Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre. He was shunned for speaking out, but finally 30 years later he was honored by his peers.

Coretta Scott King was the matriarch of the civil rights movement. Widowed at 40, she took up her husband's torch and kept the flame burning bright. She inspired millions with her courage and her grace.

Katherine Dunham was a magnificent dancer, teacher and choreographer. With her troupe, she brought the roots of black dance to the Western stage. "We weren't pushing 'black is beautiful,'" she once wrote. "We just showed it."

Gordon Parks showed us an America in black and white. He was quite simply one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.

"Anybody who was suffering, my camera had to be there as a tool, I don't care what color they were," he said. But Gordon Parks was much more: a poet, a composer, the first major black director. Thank you, Gordon Parks, for all your gifts.

Photographer Arnold Newman was known for his portraits of the famous and powerful.

Nam June Paik once said, 'if it's not interesting, it's not art.' What Nam June Paik did was very interesting. He was a video pioneer, the first to turn television into art.

What Aaron Spelling did on television wasn't always considered art, but boy, did people watch. He was a prime time giant.

Frank Stanton was a broadcasting giant. He led CBS into the television age.

Everybody loved Peter Boyle. Whether as Raymond's old man, or as Young Frankenstein, Peter Boyle never missed a beat.

Don Knotts died this year. He gave us one of the great comic characters in television history, that bumbling deputy, Barney Fife. Don Knotts, you tickled us so.

And Peter Benchley, you terrified us so. Vacationers didn't think it was safe to go into the water, thanks to your "fish story," Jaws.

Buck Owens was country music's biggest star for a time with a string of hits in the 60s then as co-host of the TV hit "Hee Haw." Goodbye to him.

June Allyson was everybody's sweetheart. She was the darling of the movie musical and the wholesome girl next door. June Allyson never went out of fashion.

Oleg Cassini was all about fashion. And while many women wore his designs, it was one woman's clothes that made the man. As Jackie Kennedy's designer, Oleg Cassini redefined glamour.

Harry Olivieri redefined lunch. He and his brother Pat created the Philadelphia cheese-steak.

Kids have a "yabba dabba doo time" thanks to Joe Barbera's creations. With partner Bill Hanna, he gave us cartoon characters like "the Flintstones," "Yogi Bear" and "The Jetsons." We'll be "tooning" in to watch his handiwork for years to come.

Lew Anderson, you were a class clown. As Clarabell for most of the Howdy Doody Shows in the '50s, you never spoke until the very last show. Goodbye to you, Lew Anderson.

And goodbye to you, Wendy Wasserstein. A fine playwright, yours was the voice of a generation of modern women.

We said goodbye to Ruth Brown this year. Soulful and spirited, she was so popular they called the fledgling record company she sang for "the House that Ruth built."

That company was Atlantic Records and the man behind it was Ahmet Ertegun. He brought us Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones and Sonny and Cher. More than anyone else, Ahmet Ertegun shaped the sound of music for the past 60 years.

Ed Bradley brought us stories — powerful, provocative, human stories. Stories about the events and the people, who shaped our world. Ed helped shape our world with his passion, his drive and his dignity. Ed Bradley was a role model for us all.

Gerald Ford took on a role he hadn't sought at a time he hadn't chosen. Though many didn't forgive his pardon, at a time of great turmoil, his was a steady hand. He wanted history to remember him as someone who healed the country. And so it has.

So we say goodbye to them all and to all we couldn't name.

Though our hearts are heavy, they're also full of gratitude for the lives they lived and the gifts they shared.

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