Edward M. Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, has died at age 77. After a rocky youth (including scandals of cheating and reckless driving), Kennedy followed his brothers into politics, making health care his cause, and eventually went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Anticipating his own death, he had been trying to create a quick transition for his replacement as a vote on health care reform rapidly approached.
posted by ocherdraco on Aug 25, 2009 - 659 comments

Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson has died. Dickinson's full credits are as impressive a resume as you'll find over the past 40 years: session player for many, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Aretha Franklin. Producer for albums by Jason and the Scorchers, Big Star, the Replacements, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and Mudhoney. Among his survivors are sons Cody and Luther of the North Mississippi All-Stars. His death comes one week after a benefit show in his honor headlined by John Hiatt. R.I.P., Jim.
posted by Ufez Jones on Aug 15, 2009 - 25 comments

RIP Julius Shulman, iconic photographer of modernist architecture.
posted by WPW on Jul 16, 2009 - 13 comments

Ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett has died. [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy on May 25, 2009 - 67 comments

Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, dead at 52.
posted by you just lost the game on Feb 4, 2009 - 149 comments

Tony Hart (wiki) has died. Clip.
posted by MrMustard on Jan 18, 2009 - 44 comments

Patrick McGoohan has died. The BBC and other news agencies are reporting the death of actor Patrick McGoohan, following a brief illness. He was 80 years old. McGoohan is best known as the star and co-producer of the 1960s cult classic TV series "The Prisoner", which we have discussed here many times, most recently last week when AMC announced that it would stream all of the original episodes on its website. AMC has also been producing a remake of the series starring Jim Caviezel (as Number 6) and Ian McKellen (as Number 2) for broadcast this fall. [more inside]
posted by briank on Jan 14, 2009 - 116 comments

William Zantzinger, who inspired the Bob Dylan song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," died January 3. He was 69 years old. [more inside]
posted by Rangeboy on Jan 9, 2009 - 25 comments

Eight years nearly to the day after I read about Adrian Henri's death on the Formica table of a service-station cafeteria, another of my favourite poets has left us. Adrian Mitchell, left-wing poet and romantic, 1932 - 2008. [more inside]
posted by mippy on Dec 23, 2008 - 7 comments

Mitch Mitchell, best known as the drummer in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, dead at 61. The last member of the trio to pass away, Mitchell was found in his hotel room early Wednesday morning. Give the drummer some!
posted by The Card Cheat on Nov 12, 2008 - 64 comments

Said to be the busiest actor in Hollywood -- ever, Don LaFontaine was this generation's most prolific announcer, in the traditional sense of the word, lending his voice to all the major American television networks, and redefining the movie trailer. LaFontaine has died of complications from a collapsed lung at 68. [more inside]
posted by evilcolonel on Sep 1, 2008 - 94 comments

Phil Hill, the only American ever to be winner of the Formula One Championship, a mulitple time winner of the 24 Hours of LeMans races in 1958, 1961 and 1962, and automotive journalist, has died at age 81.
posted by 1f2frfbf on Aug 28, 2008 - 18 comments

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet, has died. [more inside]
posted by RogerB on Aug 9, 2008 - 21 comments

Dr. Michael E. DeBakey died last night a few months shy of 100 years old. The father of modern cardiovascular surgery, he extended the lives of thousands through multiple surgical innovations. [more inside]
posted by dog food sugar on Jul 12, 2008 - 36 comments

Sydney Pollack has died of cancer, at age 73. While best known as the director of Out of Africa and Tootsie, he also made documentaries (Sketches of Frank Gehry) and was an actor with notable roles in Eyes Wide Shut, Michael Clayton, and even an appearance in The Sopranos.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on May 26, 2008 - 64 comments

Albert Hofmann, the inventor/discoverer of LSD, has died at the age of 102. Wiki. The Albert Hofmann Foundation. Erowid entry on LSD. Hofmann's often-cited essay, "LSD, My Problem Child." Late in his life, he questioned his own invention. A conversation with Dr. Hoffman. [more inside]
posted by CitizenD on Apr 29, 2008 - 176 comments

Former Beatles roadie Neil Aspinall has died of lung cancer. He was the head of the Beatles’ Apple Corporation until about a year ago, when he resigned after the settlement of a long running dispute with Apple Computer. [more inside]
posted by Nick Verstayne on Mar 26, 2008 - 26 comments

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, inventor of the telecommunications satellite and the only reason most geeks can find Sri Lanka on a map, has died shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday.
posted by Skorgu on Mar 18, 2008 - 292 comments

And then there was one.
posted by pjern on Nov 8, 2007 - 10 comments

But if I'd ever leave you,
It couldn't be in autumn.
How I'd leave in autumn I never will know....

Robert Goulet, who shot to fame playing Lancelot in Camelot (the musical, not the model) passed away today. He had been waiting for a lung transplant.
posted by dw on Oct 30, 2007 - 59 comments

The strange and sad case of Carter Albrecht, formerly of Sorta and the New Bohemians.
posted by Navelgazer on Sep 10, 2007 - 13 comments

Obitfilter: Anita Roddick (1942-2007). Anita Roddick, who founded the Body Shop in Brighton's North Laine in 1976, has died of a stroke at St. Richard's hospital in Chichester. The shop, in Kensington Gardens, has long since closed - it's now an optician - but stories about it are still recounted. Although Body Shop is still based in nearby Littlehampton, the controlling interest was sold last year to L'Oreal for the tidy sum of $1.3bn, allowing Ms Roddick to concentrate on her campaigning work.
posted by athenian on Sep 10, 2007 - 31 comments

Alex, the African Gray parrot who "spoke" over 100 words, has passed away. y2karl introduced MetaFilter to Alex a few years ago. Alex had been the subject of Dr. Irene Pepperberg's research for nearly 20 years. His ability to communicate with people using an extensive English vocabulary demonstrated a level of intelligence previously unthought of in birds, but critics include no less than Noam Chomsky himself. Here's a 1999 NYT article about Alex if you have never heard of this incredible bird, and a video of another gray parrot demonstrating its own talents.
posted by briank on Sep 10, 2007 - 55 comments

ObitFilter: Madeleine L'Engle, Newberry-winning and banned author, died Thursday aged 89.
posted by dw on Sep 7, 2007 - 147 comments

D. James Kennedy , father of Christian Dominionism, has died.
posted by EarBucket on Sep 6, 2007 - 88 comments

I don't know what other people’s first thoughts may be on Monday mornings; but mine, as the jabber of my husband’s radio crawls into my dreams, is “Has anyone died today?” So began a week-long diary by The Economist's obituaries editor, Ann Wroe, which she completed today.
posted by Kattullus on Jul 27, 2007 - 9 comments

Charles Lane (1905-2007) , a character actor since 1931, and one of Hollywood's most recognizable "that guys". Over 350 credits from "It's a Wonderful Life" to "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" to "Petticoat Junction" and a half-dozen different characters on "I Love Lucy". Founding member of the Screen Actors guild, and more, but I'll let Mark Evanier tell you some stories. Here's his 100th Birthday party, and one of his few YouTube clips shows him as Ginger Rodger's 'customer' in "Primrose Path".
posted by wendell on Jul 10, 2007 - 19 comments

Roger Ebert remembers Joel Siegel (1943-2007) - "A Brave Man and a Hell of a Nice Guy."
posted by Guy Smiley on Jun 29, 2007 - 21 comments

Ousmane Sembene, Senegalese writer and filmmaker, has died.
posted by RogerB on Jun 11, 2007 - 16 comments

Doesn't Art Buchwald deserve an ObitFilter thread? Since we discussed his grave condition 11 months ago and the surprising postponement of his date with death... He had actually resumed writing: "Since I hadn't had any practice dying, I had to learn the hard way." His last column featured one of his trademark conversations with a fictitious government source, and before that he commented on some VIP Christmas Cards. (More recent Art here)
posted by wendell on Jan 18, 2007 - 27 comments

Robert Altman, RIP. The Director of Nashville, Mash, and A Prarie Home Companion has passed on.
posted by mattbucher on Nov 21, 2006 - 130 comments

Milton Friedman has died. One of the most famous economists to come out of the Chicago school, his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom was a straightforward challenge to the predominant Keynesian model that government intervention was frequently necessary to prevent market failures, arguing instead that the way to true political freedom was through economic freedom. He was a devout monetarist and although conventional wisdom conflates conservatism with laissez-faire economics, he described his own philosophy as liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. His 1980 book Free to Choose, written with his wife Rose in conjunction with the PBS series of the same name, explained in layman's term his philosophy of how a truly free market works for the benefit of society.
posted by Doofus Magoo on Nov 16, 2006 - 123 comments

ObitFilter: Adrienne Shelly, New York film and theatre actress and director, died on 1 November 2006 of unknown causes. A longtime "next-big-thing", Shelly's early performances in Hal Hartley's films (most notably Trust) are cherished by fans of 1990s independent films. She is survived by her husband and three-year-old daughter.
posted by pxe2000 on Nov 3, 2006 - 30 comments

RIP, Dean Wormer
posted by docpops on Feb 4, 2005 - 22 comments

Breaking History: Ronald Reagan dead at 93.
Will today be marked as the culmination of his achievements or the "end of the Reagan Era"?
MeFites are advised to please avoid piling onto the subject or the messenger
posted by wendell on Jun 5, 2004 - 415 comments

Edward Teller dies What would it be like to have your obit identify you as "Father of the Atom Bomb?" "Teller exerted a profound influence on America's defense and energy policies, championing the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, nuclear power and the Strategic Defense Initiative...."
posted by Lynsey on Sep 9, 2003 - 22 comments

Say it ain't so - heard this on the radio. I heard a brief thing on the radio that said a body found in Seattle's University District might be Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley. Down in a hole - forever?
posted by Lynsey on Apr 20, 2002 - 26 comments

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Dave Thomas, the portly pitchman whose homespun ads built Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers into one of the world's most successful fast-food franchises, has died. He was 69 ... The cause of death was not given.
posted by chrish on Jan 8, 2002 - 32 comments

Death in threes? Jonno pointed it out about six weeks ago, and I thought to myself that he was right. But man, the deaths are coming thick and fast now. The score, for those of us playing along at home, is: Musicians' deaths, 3 (John Lee Hooker, Chet Atkins and Joe Henderson), actors' deaths: 2 (Carroll O'Connor, Jack Lemmon) and Net folks' deaths, 2 (Jim Ellis and Michael Hauben. (Boozoo Chavis' passing, noted by fooljay, could be totted up in the musicians' column as well. Anthony Quinn and Joan Sims could go in the actors' column, if (like harrycaul and wackybrit, you were so inclined.)
posted by allaboutgeorge on Jul 1, 2001 - 5 comments