Notable Deaths in 2023

A look back at the esteemed personalities who left us this year, who'd touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan. The Associated Press contributed to this gallery.

"And here comes Willis, and the crowd is going wild!"  An All-Star seven times over, the NBA's Most Valuable Player in 1970, and a Hall of Fame inductee, New York Knicks center and captain Willis Reed (June 25, 1942-March 21, 2023) had sat out Game 6 of the 1970 NBA championship series against the Los Angeles Lakers due to a thigh muscle injury. When a seventh game was forced at Madison Square Garden, Knicks fans cheered when Reed was spotted coming towards the court.

Though working with a limp, Reed made two quick jump shots in the early minutes of the game, and an energized Knicks (including a blazing Walt Frazier, who scored 36 points with 19 assists) rolled over the Lakers 113-99, winning their first NBA title.

A native of Hico, Louisiana, Reed led Grambling State to three Southwestern Athletic Conference championships, and an NAIA title in 1961. A second-round draft pick for the Knicks in 1964, he was voted Rookie of the Year after scoring 1,560 points. Playing alongside such future Hall of Famers as Frazier, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere, Reed would become the anchor of the Knicks in an era when they were one of basketball's premier teams.

Injuries kept Reed off the court for much of the 1971-72 season, but the following year he led the Knicks to their second title. Described by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as "the ultimate team player and consummate leader," Reed would score more than 12,000 points and 8,400 rebounds over ten seasons, averaging 18.7 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.

Reed went on to coach the Knicks to a playoff berth in 1977-78, and also coached the New Jersey Nets and Creighton University. He later served as an executive for the Knicks, as senior vice president of basketball operations.

In 1996 Reed was named among the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

In 2016 he talked to The New York Times about walking into Madison Square Garden now: "When I walk in and see my number (19) hanging from the ceiling, that's what I'm most proud of. I think to myself that all the hard work paid off."

Lance Reddick

Character actor Lance Reddick (June 7, 1962-March 17, 2023) specialized in playing intense authority figures on TV and in films. He was best known as Lt. Cedric Daniels on HBO's "The Wire."

A Yale School of Drama graduate, Reddick was also a musician, who studied classical composition at the Eastman School of Music. But his efforts to break into the music industry were coming up short, and his odd jobs landed him in bed with a back injury. That was when, he told Casting Frontier in a 2019 interview, it was time to think outside the box: "You know what? If I keep doing this, I'll be doing this for the rest of my life," he said. "I thought, 'Well, I don't have any money; I don't have any connections. What do I have? … Well, I know I can sing, and I know I can act, 'cause I acted in college.

"'Well, let me try that.'"

He started getting small parts on TV and in the theater, before landing the role of an undercover officer masquerading as a prison inmate in "Oz." He would later star in the series "The Wire," "Fringe" and "Lost." He played Continental Hotel concierge Charon in the "John Wick" films, and earned a SAG Award nomination as part of the cast of "One Night in Miami."

His other appearances include "The West Wing," "CSI: Miami," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Intelligence," "Corporate," "American Horror Story," "Bosch," "Oldboy," "I Dreamed of Africa," "The Siege," "Great Expectations," and "Angel Has Fallen." He also was a voice actor on such shows as "The Vindicators," "Duck Tales," "Castlevania" and "Rick and Morty," and played characters in video games, including the "Destiny" series.

Still to be released are "White Men Can't Jump," "Shirley," "Ballerina" (a spinoff from "John Wick"), and "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial."

He released a jazz album, "Contemplations and Remembrances," in 2011. "Growing up as a musician I was always awed by it, but I was scared of it," he said in a 2010 interview with the Philadelphia Sunday Sun. "I always thought jazz musicians were in a special category. There were rock musicians, there were classical musicians, but the jazz musicians were the real cats. …

"As an actor, unless you reach a particular level of stardom, you always feel like just a glorified employee. I really wanted to create something that I felt that I controlled. Started doing the songwriting demo, never intending for it to become an album. I just kept writing and starting writing excessively and listening to different kinds of music. I wrote more and more songs and thought, 'What the heck, I'll just do it.'"

Pat Schroeder

In 1972 Pat Schroeder (July 30, 1940-March 13, 2023) became the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado. During her tenure she fought for women's and family rights, and for expanding the voices of women in government.

A graduate of Harvard Law, Schroeder worked for the National Labor Relations Board and Planned Parenthood, and was a teacher in Denver.

In 1998 she published "24 Years of Housework ... and the Place Is Still a Mess,″ which chronicled the frustration she experienced with the men who dominated Washington, and of her quixotic entry into politics. She wrote that she was asked to partake of a "kamikaze run" in 1972, a year when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was deemed to have no coattails in her district. Her husband, a lawyer who himself had lost a state race, told her, "You probably can't even win the primary. But if you don't get in the race and articulate the issues, they will not be discussed. You think the government's policies about Vietnam and the environment are wrongheaded, and you're always urging your students to get involved. It's an opportunity that may not come again." But Schroeder was surprise winner of the primary, and went on to win the general. She would easily win reelection 11 times.

One of her biggest legislative victories was a family leave bill in 1993, which provided job protection to those caring for a newborn, sick child, or parent. She was also instrumental in laws that protected women from being fired because they had become pregnant, and that expanded roles for women in the military.

Schroeder became the first woman named to the House Armed Services Committee, but she was forced to share a chair with Rep. Ron Dellums, the first African American; Schroeder said the committee chairman, Louisiana Democrat F. Edward Hebert, thought the committee was no place for a woman or an African American, and so they were each worth half a seat.

She would use her wit to attack misogyny. When one congressman asked how she could be a House member and the mother of two small children at the same time, she replied, "I have a brain and a uterus, and I use both"; and she once chided Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant, because they never said "No.″ She also applied the phrase "Teflon president" to Ronald Reagan. And to illustrate her charge that lawmakers spent too much time courting special interests and campaign donations, she and several aides climbed the Capitol dome and hung a 15-foot red banner reading, "Sold," as backdrop for a gathering of Republicans on the Capitol's steps celebrating their first 100 days in power in 1994.

She blasted Speaker Newt Gingrich for suggesting women serving in combat would be prone to infections, and filed an ethics complaint over Gingrich's televised college lecture series; he became the first speaker reprimanded by Congress.

"I was never a shrinking violet, but I don't think I would ever have exposed myself to the travails of political life if I hadn't been given last rites at age thirty, almost bleeding to death after giving birth to my daughter," she wrote. "That little ceremony gets your attention!"

After Congress, Schroeder became a professor at Princeton University. She also headed the Association of American Publishers.

Chaim Topol

Chaim Topol (September 9, 1935-March 8, 2023) was one of Israel's leading actors, who became synonymous with a single character: Tevye, the milkman, in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." He played the part more than 3,500 times on stages around the world, beginning when he was 30 (aided by heavy makeup), and most recently in 2009, when he was in his mid-70s. (He received a Tony Award nomination for appearing in a 1990 Broadway revival.) He also starred in the 1971 movie version, for which he earned a Golden Globe Award and a best actor Oscar nomination.

While in the Israeli Army in the 1950s, Topol joined a military theatrical troupe, and when his enlistment ended he helped found another theater company. It was while with another troupe that performed works by Shakespeare, Ionesco and Brecht that he became what he called "a serious actor." He made a splash internationally as the lead in the 1964 satirical film "Sallah Shabati," which told of the hardships facing Jewish immigrants. It was the first Israeli production to receive an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film, and it earned Topol a Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. He later appeared in "Cast a Giant Shadow" (with Kirk Douglas), and "Before Winter Comes" (with David Niven and John Hurt).

He said his experience as a descendant of Russian Jews helped him in his performance as Tevye, a part he was originally not attracted to after seeing Zero Mostel perform on Broadway. "I really didn't like it," Topol told the Jerusalem Post in 2013, "because Zero, as much as he was a genius, was sometimes unfaithful to the text. He was a crazy guy. The music was lovely. But I thought, 'It's not for me.'"

He would change his mind after watching a Hebrew production of "Fiddler," starring Shmuel Rodensky, when he realized "what an idiot I was, what a wonderful part this was, because Rodensky was very serious and he didn't play for the comedy – mainly during the second half, which is very serious – and broke my heart." Topol would later call Tevye "one of the best parts ever written for a male actor-singer."

After playing Tevye in Israel, he was hired to star in the London production, though was asked to drop his first name (as being too difficult to pronounce). He later won the lead in Norman Jewison's film version of "Fiddler on the Roof," which received eight Academy Award nominations and won three Oscars.

Other movie credits include "The Private Eye," "Galileo," "Flash Gordon," and the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only." He appeared in the TV mini-series "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."

In his later years he served as chairman of Jordan River Village, an overnight camp for Middle Eastern children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses that had partnered with Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang camps.

In 2015 he told the Associated Press that he preferred working with charities to chasing acting roles, and spoke of promoting coexistence at his village in northern Israel: "I can tell you that in our village Jews and Arabs and Christians and Muslims ... are hugging each other, and it works very well when politicians are not involved," he said.

But even without chasing roles, he will be forever recognized as Tevye. "How many people are known for one part? How many people in my profession are known worldwide?" he told the AP. "I'm not complaining."

Traute Lafrenz

Traute Lafrenz (May 3, 1919-March 6, 2023) was the last known survivor of the White Rose, a group of students who resisted the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. 

Born in Hamburg, Lafrenz moved to Munich to study medicine. There, she met Hans Scholl, one of a group of students who distributed leaflets opposing Hitler and Nazism. Hans and his sister, Sophie Scholl, were among those arrested and executed. Lafrenz was later arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, but hid her involvement with the White Rose, and received a one-year prison sentence. She was detained again at a prison in Bayreuth, and was awaiting trial when she was freed by American troops in April 1945, during the final days of the war.

She emigrated to the United States, completed her medical training in San Francisco, and married a doctor. She headed a school in Chicago, and retired in South Carolina.

On her 100th birthday Lafrenz was awarded Germany's Order of Merit, citing her as one of the few who, "in the face of the crimes of national socialism, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews. She is a heroine of freedom and humanity."

Judy Heumann

The "mother of the disability rights movement," Judy Heumann (December 18, 1947-March 4, 2023) lost her ability to walk at age 2 after contracting polio. She faced innumerable obstacles beginning in childhood, as when her parents tried to register her for kindergarten. The school denied her, claiming her wheelchair would create a fire hazard.

She grew up to become an activist who, through protests and legal actions, helped secure legislation protecting the rights of the disabled, including the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.

She was featured in the Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary, "Crip Camp," which highlighted Camp Jened, a summer camp in New York's Catskills for people with disabilities, where Heumann was a counselor. The camp helped spark America's disability rights movement.

During the 1970s she won a lawsuit against New York's Board of Education, allowing her to work while using a wheelchair – becoming the first teacher in the state to do so. 

Heumann also founded a group called Disabled in Action, which conducted street demonstrations. In 1977, when the Carter administration was delaying the implementation of regulations that would protect the disabled, Heumann lead a sit-in with scores of disabled people (including some from Camp Jened) at a federal office building in San Francisco – an occupying force that a CBS News reporter at the time described as "protesters in wheelchairs, the lame, the palsied and the blind." The sit-in would go on for weeks. Finally, Heumann and a small delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., to gain attention, hauled around town in the back of a truck. "It was very important for all of us that we wanted people to see us," Heumann told "Sunday Morning" in 2021.

On the 23rd day of the San Francisco sit-in, the regulations were very quietly signed in Washington. Heumann told one gathering, "The Congress, the press, the American public have seen that we have stamina, strength and intelligence." Their actions would help bring about passage of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

Heumann served as assistant secretary of the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, from 1993 until 2001. She was also involved in passage of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified in 2008.

Wayne Shorter

Jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933-March 2, 2023) was a member of two of the most celebrated jazz groups of all time: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and the Miles Davis Quintet. He also co-founded the fusion band Weather Report, and composed such jazz standards as "Speak No Evil," "Black Nile," "Footprints," and "Nefertiti."

Growing up in Newark, New Jersey in the 1930s, he loved to draw comics, and would skip school to watch science-fiction films at a local theater. When he was caught, the vice principal forced him into a music class. "So, as I was walking away from her classroom, what was happening to me was what some people call life change," Shorter told "CBS This Morning" in 2018.

In a career spanning nearly seven decades, Shorter would record more than 25 albums, winning 12 Grammys, mostly recently in February 2023 for best improvised jazz solo ("Endangered Species" with Leo Genovese). He received a lifetime Grammy Award in 2015.

He performed and recorded with such artists as Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, Steely Dan, Norah Jones, and The Rolling Stones. His music has been performed by symphony orchestras in Chicago, Detroit, Lyon, Prague and Amsterdam. He also collaborated with Esperanza Spalding on an operatic work titled "(Iphigenia)."

Shorter was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2018. That year, he was asked by "CBS This Morning" why he loved jazz so much. He exclaimed, "Jazz is a fighter. The word jazz means to me, 'I dare you. Let's jump into the unknown!'"

Jean Faut

A pitcher for the South Bend Blue Sox, one of the teams that made up the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during and after World War II, Jean Faut (January 17, 1925-February 28, 2023) was the league's all-time ERA leader (1.23) after eight seasons, and was second in career wins (140). She also threw two no-hitters, as well as two perfect games – a feat no Major League Baseball pitcher ever matched. 

A Pennsylvania high school athlete with a strong arm, Faut pitched batting practice for the East Greenville Cubs, a semipro baseball team. A scout contacted her, and at age 21 Faut was recruited for the all-women's baseball league. She married just before her second season started, and so she would juggle pitching and child-rearing as one of the league's stars.

After five years, her place on the team was jeopardized when her husband, once a Philadelphia Phillies prospect, applied for and got the position of manager of the Blue Sox, without Faut knowing. It led to isolation from her teammates and friction with her husband. She retired in 1953, after leading the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA, and being named the league's Player of the Year for the second time.

Faut later had a second child, divorced her husband, and remarried. She also competed in tournaments of the Professional Women's Bowling Association. Among the jobs she held after her playing days was running the mosquito biology training program at the University of Notre Dame. 

Richard Belzer

Comedian Richard Belzer (August 4, 1944-February 19, 2023) was long a mainstay of comedy clubs and cable specials, rising to become one of the top stand-ups of the '70s and '80s. Cynical, caustic and irreverent, he would engage with the audience, sometimes combatively. But beyond stand-up, he developed a separate persona as John Munch, a wise-cracking homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories, whom he portrayed in nearly a dozen different TV series, beginning in a 1993 episode of "Homicide: Life on the Street." Over the next 23 years Munch would reappear in "The Wire," "Law & Order," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Law and Order: Trial By Jury," "The X-Files," "The Beat," "Arrested Development," "30 Rock" and "Sesame Street."

Belzer was brought in to read for the part of Munch after the executive producer of "Homicide," Barry Levinson, heard the comedian on "The Howard Stern Show." "The most difficult thing for me was to imagine myself as a detective," Belzer told The Washington Post in 1994. "I had to figure out, how would I be a detective? How could that have happened in my life? I pretended my father was a detective who was killed in the line of duty and I wasn't going to be a cop until he died. ... I invented a past for myself."

Born into an abusive household in Bridgeport, Connecticut (he was beaten by his mother; both parents died, his father by suicide, when Belzer was in his early 20s), he was expelled from college. After a series of jobs (including jewelry salesman, reporter, teacher and census taker), he landed a part in Channel One's "Groove Tube," a satire of television that co-starred Chevy Chase. The sketches, shot on video and presented off-Broadway, were later re-filmed and released as a movie. Belzer then landed at New York City's Catch A Rising Star, becoming a regular and emcee. He served as the warm-up comic for "Saturday Night Live" when the series debuted, and went on to appear in and headline numerous TV specials. In 1984 he hosted the Cinemax talk show "The Richard Belzer Show."

In addition to small roles in "Fame," "Night Shift," "Author! Author!," "Scarface," "Miami Vice," "Fletch Lives," "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "Girl 6," and "Species II," among others, he'd also turn up as himself, in the Andy Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon," and "The Comedian." Belzer wrote a quasi-self-help book, "How to Be a Stand-Up Comic," and a novel, "I Am Not a Cop!" He also co-authored several books on conspiracy theories, from the Kennedy assassination to UFOs.

He settled a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan after the wrestler made an appearance in 1985 on Belzer's cable talk show "Hot Properties." To demonstrate a professional wrestling move, Hogan put the comedian in a headlock. Belzer fell unconscious, his head opening up on the studio floor. "A lot of people thought it was a stunt, but believe me, it wasn't," Belzer told the Post, explaining that with the settlement money he put a down payment on a house in France, which he cheekily dubbed the Hulk Hogan Arms.

Stella Stevens

Actress Stella Stevens (October 1, 1938-February 18, 2023) was a charmer whose lasting appeal was due to her deft balancing of her beauty and her light comic touch, perhaps no better employed than as the foil of the starry-eyed Jerry Lewis in the film "The Nutty Professor." She was featured in numerous comedies in the 1960s and '70s (winning a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year in 1960), but probably found her biggest audience as the bickering wife of Ernest Borgnine in the 1972 disaster film, "The Poseidon Adventure," in which she performed many of her own stunts.

Born Estelle Caro Eggleston in Yazoo City, Mississippi, she married young and gave birth to son Andrew Stevens (who became an actor and producer) when she was 17. Two years later, she was divorced and began modeling and acting at Memphis State University, where she was spotted by a press agent at a performance of "Bus Stop." She would go on to win roles in the musicals "Say One for Me" and "Li'l Abner," and posed as a Playboy Playmate of the Month.

After some TV appearances ("Hawaiian Eye," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Bonanza"), she starred in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and the Elvis Presley picture "Girls! Girls! Girls!" Then came "The Nutty Professor," playing student Stella Purdy, whom Lewis pines for, and tries to win over via the magic of chemistry, which transforms the nebbish into a suave man-about-town.

Other pictures included "The Secret of My Success," "The Silencers," "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows," "How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life," Sam Peckinpah's comic western "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," and "Nickelodeon." She was also featured in dramas, including John Cassavetes' "Too Late Blues," "Rage," "The Mad Room," and "A Town Called Hell." She contributed to the blaxploitation genre, filming a love scene with Jim Brown in "Slaughter," and fighting Tamara Dobson in "Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold."

During the '70s and '80s she appeared frequently on TV, including the pilot for "Wonder Woman" opposite Lynda Carter, "Police Story," "Hart to Hart," "Flamingo Road," "Matt Houston," "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "Night Court," "Murder, She Wrote," "Magnum, P.I.," and "Santa Barbara."

In 1979 Stevens directed a documentary, "The American Heroine," which failed to win distribution. Ten years later, she directed her son in the romantic comedy "The Ranch." 

Though she idolized Marilyn Monroe, she told Delta Magazine in 2010 that she didn't want to imitate Monroe – she wanted to be herself. "I want to be remembered for whatever made people laugh the most," she said. "I did like to make people laugh."

Raquel Welch

When she was seven years old, Raquel Welch (September 5, 1940-February 15, 2023) had her first taste of acting on stage, playing a boy – an ironic introduction for an actress who would become internationally renowned as a leading sex symbol, applying her stunning beauty, a challenging self-confidence and a comic touch to performances on stage and screen.

Born of an Anglo mother and Bolivian father, Jo-Raquel Tejada was a beauty pageant winner, actress, dancer and San Diego TV news "weathergirl." She was also a divorced mother of two young children when she met her second of four husbands, actor-turned-press agent Patrick Curtis, who helped shape her career. She had a flurry of guest roles in TV comedies (including "Bewitched" and "McHale's Navy"), a bit part in the Elvis Presley film "Roustabout," and a starring role opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian "Shoot Loud, Louder... I Don't Understand," before starring in the sci-fi adventure "Fantastic Voyage," playing a scientist shrunken and injected into a man's bloodstream.

An even larger role came in the British dinosaur-and-caveman flick "One Million Years B.C.," its poster and advertising images beckoning moviegoers with a provocative Welch clad in a deerskin bikini. She had virtually no lines, but didn't need them to stun a global audience. As The New York Times opined, the film featured "a marvelous breathing monument to womankind named Raquel Welch."

She became a phenomenon, gracing magazine covers and starring in a string of movies, from westerns ("Bandolero!," "100 Rifles," "Hannie Caulder"), thrillers ( "Fathom"), mysteries ("Lady in Cement," "The Last of Sheila"), and the limited genre of roller derby films ("Kansas City Bomber"). She had a pronounced gift for comedy ("Bedazzled," "The Magic Christian," "Myra Breckinridge," "Fuzz," "Crossed Swords," "Mother, Jugs & Speed," "The Wild Party"), winning a Golden Globe for "The Three Musketeers." She showcased her musical talents on TV alongside such glam stars as Tom Jones, Cher and Miss Piggy.

She won positive reviews when she replaced Lauren Bacall on Broadway in the musical "Woman of the Year," and returned to the Great White Way for "Victor/Victoria" (this time playing a girl playing a boy playing a girl). On TV, she starred as the Latina Aunt Dora on PBS' "American Family," reclaiming part of her heritage (her father had banned speaking Spanish at home when she was growing up). She also got into a catfight with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on "Seinfeld."

Welch also authored a bestselling book, starred in exercise videos, and helped raise millions for the American Cancer Society to buy wigs for cancer patients.

Burt Bacharach

The recipient of six Grammy Awards and three Oscars, songwriter, composer and pianist Burt Bacharach (May 12, 1928-February 8, 2023) helped create the soundtrack of several decades' worth of pop hits, his musicianship drawing comparisons to Cole Porter. But he hadn't even wanted to go into the music business. "I thought I'd probably wind up in the men's clothing business," he told "Sunday Morning" in 2002, "because I thought it was the easiest, most accessible job that my dad might be able to introduce me to."

But then, after listening to the songs of the day, he decided that it would be easy to write them. "I mean, they were really ordinary, familiar. I thought this could be a snap. I was wrong! I did really, really bad!"

Having grown up influenced by both jazz and classical, Bacharach's talent would be proven in creating melodies, though as a young man studying composition, he realized his peers favored an edgier, more dissonant sound. He told "60 Minutes" in 1999, "I had this one, the middle movement of this sonata, and I was almost ashamed to play it in class because it was so melodic, it really had a melody. And I kind of shuffled it through and played it, and he said … 'Burt, don't ever, ever feel ashamed of writing something that's melodic, and that people can remember.'"

He was the orchestra leader for Marlene Dietrich's cabaret shows, and wrote music for Broadway ("Promises, Promises"), and the movies ("Alfie," "What's New, Pussycat," "Casino Royale," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Arthur"). Bacharach's songs, often written with longtime collaborator Hal David, were poignant, sometimes melancholic ballads about love and loss, and were consistent chart-toppers. His music was recorded by such artists as Nat King Cole, Perry Como, The Drifters, Cilla Black, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Carole Bayer Sager, Andy Williams, Roberta Flack, The 5th Dimension, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, Patti LaBelle, and Christopher Cross.

But the singer most closely tied to his work was Dionne Warwick. Their string of immortal hits included "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," "Don't Make Me Over," "Wishin' and Hopin'," "Anyone Who Had a Heart," "Walk On By," "A House Is Not a Home," "You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)," "I Say a Little Prayer," and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose."

By the mid-seventies Bacharach's music faded somewhat, as pop became harder, and his smooth melodies and lush, often quirky arrangements seemed stuck in the sixties. But then, who better to capture the era of Swinging London in the "Austin Powers" films? Bacharach appeared as himself in comedian Mike Myers' first James Bond spoof, performing "What the World Needs Now Is Love," and returned for the sequels.

Back in the public eye, he was soon back on the pop charts, thanks to an unlikely partner, British punk rocker Elvis Costello. After the two teamed on a song for the film "Grace of My Heart," they collaborated on the album "Painted From Memory," which featured "I Still Have That Other Girl," earning the pair a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals.

A lesson in Bacharach's innovation – and his singular knack for melody – could be heard in his story, told to "60 Minutes," about the trouble he had with musicians performing one song, sung by Warwick: "I remember having a huge fight with the band at the Apollo, 'cause she was singing 'Anyone Who Had a Heart,' and that changes time signature every bar. They didn't know why I'd done it. And I'm saying, 'Listen, here's the thing: the record's a Top 10, so people are reacting to it. It's Top 10 in the country; people are getting it, and they're not trying to count it. Why don't you guys just try to, instead of reading what's on the paper, just feel it in your heart?'"

Bobby Hull

Hall of Famer and two-time MVP Bobby Hull (January 3, 1939-January 30, 2023) helped the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 1961. One of the most prolific forwards in NHL history, he scored 610 times during his 16-year career with Chicago, Hartford and Winnipeg. Nicknamed "The Golden Jet" for his speed and blond hair, he also collected 303 goals while playing for the Jets in the World Hockey Association for seven seasons, having been lured away from the NHL with hockey's first $1 million contract.

Hull was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, and his No. 9 sweater was retired by the Blackhawks that same year.

In 1965 Hull talked with Sports Illustrated about his intuitions on how a game might turn out: "There are nights when I can tell long before a game how it is going to go. When you first go out onto the ice in the warmup you can tell. If your legs feel light you kind of smile to yourself and you take great joy in skating around and getting warm. When I go back down into the dressing room 15 minutes before the game I often say to Dennis [Hull, his brother and teammate], 'I feel he's got it tonight; I feel he's got it tonight.' Dennis laughs and sometimes he kids me by sending the word down the line: 'The Rolls-Royce is going to roll tonight.'"

Lisa Loring

Lisa Loring (February 16, 1958-January 28, 2023) was a child actor ("Dr. Kildare") and model when, at the age of five, she was cast as Wednesday Addams in the 1960s sitcom "The Addams Family." Inspired by Charles Addams' gruesomely hilarious cartoons of a sinister family living in a Gothic mansion, Wednesday was the young girl who played with a headless doll and kept a black widow spider as a pet. She also had some funky dance moves.

Loring told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2017 that, when auditioning, she topped actresses much older than she was for the role (it helped that she resembled Carolyn Jones, who played her mother, Morticia), but didn't have a problem learning her lines: "I learned to memorize before I could read."

Her life beyond "Addams Family" was certainly colorful. After her mother died, she married at age 15 – it was the first of four marriages (one of her husbands performed in porn films). She continued acting, on the soap opera "As the World Turns," in guest appearances on "Fantasy Island" and "Barnaby Jones," and in genre films, such as "Blood Frenzy," "Savage Harbor" and "Doctor Spine." And she'd appear at conventions, where she'd autograph pictures of her five-year-old self. 

Tom Verlaine

Guitarist Tom Verlaine (December 13, 1949-January 28, 2023) became a fixture of the downtown New York music venue CBGB, where he performed alongside such acts as the Ramones, Patti Smith and Talking Heads, including as part of the proto-punk band, Television, which he co-founded.

Television's groundbreaking debut album "Marquee Moon" (1977) included a nearly 11-minute title track and "Elevation." The band broke up the following year, after the release of their second album, "Adventure." Verlaine was part of the lineup when the band reformed in the mid-'90s (when they released their third album), and again in 2001. Verlaine also went on to release ten albums of his own, his most successful being 1981's "Dreamtime."

His influences were less rock 'n' roll and more jazz and avant-garde concert composers (like Ligeti and Penderecki). Though he had a low professional profile, his guitar shredding and improvisations produced a unique sound (what Smith once described as "like a thousand bluebirds screaming") that influenced such performers as Michael Stipe and Flea.

In 2006 Verlaine, described by The New York Times as a "guitar god," explained to the paper why he hadn't pursued more commercial success: "When I first started touring, having to get up at 7 a.m. to get on buses or go to airports after playing all night, I thought: 'This is terrible. This is not what music is about.' It dawned on me that I had to make a decision: Am I going to go along with this whole thing or not? I just said, nah. I decided against the whole 'careering' thing."

Billy Packer

Emmy Award-winning college basketball broadcaster Billy Packer (February 25, 1940-January 26, 2023) worked as an analyst and color commentator on every Final Four for 34 years beginning in 1975, for NBC and CBS.

Packer, who played three seasons at Wake Forest, and helped lead the Demon Deacons to the college tournament in 1962; 13 years later he was in the broadcast booth. He joined CBS in 1981, and was the network's main analyst until the 2008 Final Four. That year he was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

In 2007 he told CBS Sports, "I had a chance to play in a Final Four way back in 1962 in San Diego, and about the only people who knew about it were the people from the various schools that were in it, and a few people in San Diego. But from a national perspective it was nothing like it became, even when I started broadcasting. Of course, now it's become kind of a ritual, the month of March, for America."

David Crosby

In 2008 singer-songwriter-guitarist David Crosby (August 14, 1941-January 18, 2023) told "Sunday Morning" a key to understanding the power and longevity of his music: "The best songs take you a while to digest, and no two people get exactly the same picture from them because they incite a little fire. They ignite a little fire in your imagination."

Since the 1960s, Crosby has fired up lots of imaginations. Crosby dropped out of college to pursue his passion for music, and in 1964 he joined The Byrds, but his stint with the band came to an unhappy end, when he was thrown out. "I wasn't that easy to handle," he said. "I had a big ego, and I wanted them to play my songs. I was starting to write pretty good songs."

He'd performed with Buffalo Springfield, before teaming with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash (and, for a time, Neil Young), to record some of the most essential music of the era, including the albums "Crosby, Stills & Nash" (1969), "Déjà Vu" (1970), the live album "4 Way Street" (1971), and "CSN" (1977).  When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young started touring in the summer of '69, the second gig they ever played was a little gathering called Woodstock.

The production of "Déjà Vu" came at a particularly fraught time for each of the band's members. For Crosby, his girlfriend, Christine Hinton, had been killed in a car crash. "I was in terrible shape," Crosby told Anthony Mason in 2021. "I was damn near destroyed. I'm just really lucky we were making that record, because it gave me a raison d'être … It's what kept me alive."

Crosby would record 17 studio albums with The Byrds, CS&N and others. He also released eight solo studio albums, including 1971's "If I Could Only Remember My Name." Among the songs for which Crosby is credited as writer or co-writer are "Renaissance Fair," "Everybody's Been Burned," "Wooden Ships," "Long Time Gone," "Déjà Vu," "Guinnevere," "Almost Cut My Hair," "Long Time Gone," and "Laughing."

In the 1980s addiction led to drug charges and a year-and-a-half in prison, during which he went cold turkey, and came out vowing to remain sober. In later years he received a liver transplant and underwent heart surgery. But he also recorded four albums as part of the trio CPR (in which he performed with session guitarist Jeff Pevar, and keyboardist James Raymond, a child he'd had out of wedlock and given up for adoption in 1962, with whom he'd reunited).

In 2000 it was revealed that Crosby was the father (via artificial insemination) of two children Melissa Etheridge shared with her then-partner Julie Cypher. 

Lloyd Morrisett

Lloyd Morrisett (November 2, 1929-January 15, 2023), who had trained to be a teacher with a background in psychology, and who earned his doctorate in experimental psychology at Yale University, was looking for new ways to educate children from less-advantaged backgrounds.

In 1966, at a dinner party with documentary producer Joan Ganz Cooney, Morrisett asked her, "Joan, do you think television could be used to teach young children?" Their conversations about the possibilities led to the founding of the Children's Television Workshop, and their marquee production, "Sesame Street,"

Morrisett and Cooney worked with Harvard University developmental psychologist Gerald Lesser to build the show's unique approach to teaching, featuring a culturally-diverse cast, augmented with Jim Henson's lovable Muppets. Since its 1969 debut, "Sesame Street" has won 216 Emmys, 11 Grammys, and the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement – the first television program to receive the award. The series is shown in more than 150 countries, reaching 120 million children. 

Lisa Marie Presley

The only child of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley (February 1, 1968-January 12, 2023) lived with her mother, actress Priscilla Presley, after her parents split up in 1973, when Lisa Marie was four. But she remembered her father during frequent visits to Graceland, including when he'd make his entrances. "He was always fully, fully geared up," she told The Associated Press in 2012. "You'd never see him in his pajamas coming down the steps, ever. You'd never see him in anything but 'ready to be seen' attire."

Lisa Marie was just nine when Elvis died, but he loomed large over her life, as she embarked on a career as a singer-songwriter, even mixing her voice with his in a video of his 1969 ballad, "Don't Cry Daddy." She performed on stage with such artists as Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley, and recorded three albums, two of which – "To Whom It May Concern" and "Now What" – hit Billboard's Top 10.

Lisa Marie's personal life was rocky: four marriages (including to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage), struggles with drugs, custody battles and financial hardships. One of her sons, Benjamin Storm Presley Keough, died by suicide in 2020.

The sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died, she sold her majority interest in the trust in 2005, but retained ownership of Graceland Mansion, its contents, and the 13 acres surrounding it.

In 2012 she told the AP, "I'm proud to be my father's daughter … I do feel honored about that."

Robbie Bachman

Robbie Bachman (February 18, 1953-January 12, 2023) was drummer for the Canadian hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, whose hits in the 1970s included "Takin' Care of Business" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet."

Robbie and his brothers, Randy and Tim, were Winnipeg natives who'd played music since childhood. After Randy abruptly left The Guess Who following their success with "American Woman," the three Bachmans teamed up for the group Brave Belt, joined by bassist/vocalist Fred Turner. Brave Belt would eventually morph into Bachman-Turner Overdrive (the word "Overdrive" pinched from the cover of a trucker magazine).

Between 1973 and 1979 the group released eight albums, including "Not Fragile" and "Four Wheel Drive" (which both hit #1 on the Billboard chart), "Head On," and their eponymous debut album.

In addition to "Takin' Care of Business" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet," BTO's Top 20 hits included "Let It Ride," "Roll On Down the Highway," "Hey You," "Quick Change Artist," and "Down to the Line."

In 1980, a few years after Randy left the group, BTO broke up. The brothers rarely performed together afterwards.

In 2014, when BTO was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Robbie explained the music's appeal, and what differentiated it from other rock at the time, to the Toronto Star: "We didn't tell anybody they were wrong or anything was bad or don't do this. It was basically, have a good time, fun music. … Just coming out of the '70s with the Vietnam War and all the political things going on — in Canada with Trudeau, and Richard Nixon and stuff like that — we just basically had enough of that stuff."

Jeff Beck

As a member of The Yardbirds and later as a solo artist, guitar virtuoso Jeff Beck (June 24, 1944-January 10, 2023) pushed the boundaries of rock 'n' roll, incorporating jazz, funk, blues and opera into his music, which was improvisational — and inspirational to generations of guitar shredders.

He performed with artists as varied as Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Rod Stewart and Luciano Pavarotti. He recorded 17 albums, including "Truth," "Beck-Ola," "Jeff Beck Group," "Beck, Bogert & Appice," "Blow by Blow," "Wired," "There & Back," "Emotion & Commotion," and "18." As a guest artist he performed on numerous recordings, including by Tina Turner ("Private Dancer"), Mick Jagger ("She's the Boss"), Diana Ross ("Swept Away"), ZZ Top ("Hey Mr. Millionaire"), and Ozzy Osbourne ("Patient Number 0").

Beck won eight Grammy Awards, and was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a solo act).

Russell Banks

The son of a New Hampshire plumber, novelist Russell Banks (March 28, 1940-January 7, 2023) often wrote, in such acclaimed works as "Affliction," "The Sweet Hereafter" and "Continental Drift," about the world of trailer parks and debt-plagued people barely hanging on – "People who perceive themselves and are pretty much perceived as outside the mainstream wanting to get in or, having failed that, trying to figure out how to live outside," he told "Sunday Morning" in 1995.

A professor emeritus at Princeton University, Banks was raised in the Northeast, and lived near the burial ground of abolitionist John Brown, in North Elba, New York. He told the Associated Press in 1998 of walking past his grave often enough that Brown "became a kind of ghostly presence" – the subject of his ambitious 1998 novel, "Cloudsplitter," a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Beginning with his 1975 "Family Life," Banks penned 14 novels, including "Rule of the Bone," "The Darling," and his last, 2022's "The Magic Kingdom." He also wrote short story collections and nonfiction.

A moralist writing about the marginalized, Banks said of his work, "I'm operating out of a belief that all lives are interconnected and that we're all implicated in each other's fates in significant ways and bear terrible responsibilities toward and for each other, most of which we abandon and run from. But I believe it."