NOTABLE DEATHS

Richard C. “Dick” Higgins, 102, one of the few remaining survivors of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, has died at home in Bend, Oregon. His granddaughter said Wednesday he died Tuesday of natural causes. Higgins was a radioman assigned to a patrol squadron of seaplanes based at the Oahu naval base when Japanese planes began dropping bombs on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941. In a 2008 oral history interview, he told how he saw the red circular emblem on the side of a plane as it flew close to his barracks. His granddaughter Angela Norton called her grandfather a humble and kind man who would frequently visit schools to share stories about Pearl Harbor, World War II and the Great Depression. Higgins was born on a farm near Mangum, Oklahoma, on July 24, 1921. He joined the Navy in 1939 and retired 20 years later. He then became an aeronautics engineer for Northrop Corp., which later became Northrop Grumman.

Byron Janis, 95, an acclaimed American classical pianist, has died. His wife, Maria Cooper Janis, said her husband died the evening of March 14 in New York City. Janis studied as a childhood prodigy under Vladimir Horowitz and emerged in the late 1940s as one of the most celebrated virtuosos of a new generation of American concert pianists. He went on to serve as a Cold War cultural ambassador, performing in the then-Soviet Union. At age 45, he was diagnosed with a severe form of psoriatic arthritis in his hands and wrists. Janis kept the condition secret for over a decade, often playing through excruciating pain. He revealed his diagnosis publicly in 1985 following a performance at the Reagan White House, where he was announced as a spokesperson for the Arthritis Foundation. The condition required multiple surgeries and temporarily slowed his career. However, he was able to resume performing after making adjustments to his playing technique. Janis also composed scores for TV shows and musicals, and his wife says he was still creating music until his final days.

Thomas Stafford, 93, the NASA astronaut who commanded Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal mission for the 1969 moon landing, died March 18 in a Florida hospital. Before Apollo 10, Stafford also took part in the first rendezvous of two U.S. spacecraft in 1965. A decade later, he because the first American to shake hands with a Soviet citizen in space when an Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soyuz craft. After that 1975 mission, Stafford, who had been in the Air Force earlier in his career, returned to the Air Force, where he ran the military’s top flight school and experimental plane testing base. Stafford was commanding general of the famous “Area 51” desert base in Nevada – the home of testing of Air Force stealth technologies and the focus of many UFO theories. He retired in 1979 as a three-star general. He is the namesake of the Stafford Air & Space Museum in his hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma. After he hung up his flight suit, Stafford was the go-to guy for NASA when it sought independent advice on everything from human Mars missions to returning to flight after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident. He chaired an oversight group that looked into how to fix the then-flawed Hubble Space Telescope, earning a NASA public service award. Stafford was one of 24 NASA astronauts who flew to the moon, but he did not land on it. Only seven of them are still alive.

M. Emmet Walsh, 88, a beloved character actor, died from cardiac arrest on Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vermont, his longtime manager Sandy Joseph said. Walsh brought his unmistakable face and unsettling presence to well over 100 films including “Blood Simple,” “Blade Runner” and “Straight Time.” His signature role was as a crooked Texas private investigator in “Blood Simple,” the first film from Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote the part for Walsh. Walsh played a crazed sniper in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy “The Jerk” and a prostate-examining doctor in the 1985 Chevy Chase vehicle “Fletch.” His characters were often from the South, but Walsh grew up near the U.S.-Canadian border in Vermont. He began acting in films in his late 30s and was still working in his 80s, making recent appearances on the TV series “The Righteous Gemstones” and “American Gigolo.” And his more than 100 film credits included director Rian Johnson’s 2019 family murder mystery “Knives Out” and director Mario Van Peebles’ Western “Outlaw Posse,” released this year.