FINAL CHAPTERS
Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, a Republican congressman and decorated Marine who turned against his own party leader, President Richard M. Nixon, accusing him of expanding an “illegal” war in Vietnam and calling for his impeachment over the conflict while challenging him for reelection, died May 8 in Winters, California. He was 96.
A Marine Corps rifle platoon commander during the Korean War, he received the Navy Cross and the Silver Star and used his military credentials as leverage to steer his party away from hardline conservative elements on issues including race relations and the environment. He worked to gain passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, helped organize the first Earth Day that year and supported the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Before he drew national headlines for excoriating Nixon, McCloskey had been best known for defeating Shirley Temple Black, the former Hollywood child star, in a 1967 special election for a House seat in California. His tenure lasted until 1983.
Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., who was serving as the U.S. Embassy’s thirdranking diplomat in Tehran when he was taken hostage with dozens of Americans and held for 444 days, died May 3. He was 93.
Kennedy was one of the best-known captives, partly because his wife, Louisa Livingston Kennedy, became an eloquent spokeswoman for the hostages’ families. He returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a determination to transform his life. Retiring from a two-decade career in the Foreign Service, he became a writer and educator.
Bernard Hill, who delivered a rousing cry before leading his people into battle in “The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King” and went down with the ship as the captain in the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic,” died May 5. He was 79.
Hill joined the “Lord of the Rings” franchise in the second film of the trilogy, 2002’s “The Two Towers,” as Théoden, King of
Rohan. The next year, he reprised the role in “Return of the King,” a movie that won 11 Oscars.
Frank Stella, an artist who achieved early fame with monochromatic paintings that helped establish minimalism as an alternative to abstract expressionism in the late 1950s, then spent the next 50 years creating colorful works that seemed to repudiate his youthful principles, died May 4 in Manhattan. He was 87.
Stella was in his early 20s and just out of Princeton University when he burst onto the scene with his “Black Paintings,” in which regular bands of dark paint were separated by pinstripes of unpainted canvas. Four of the paintings were included in the Museum of Modern Art’s seminal 1959 show “Sixteen Americans.”
Lesley Hazleton ,a psychologist turned journalist and author who wrote biographies of the prophet Muhammad, the Virgin Mary and Jezebel — in addition to driving race cars and writing columns about cars — died April 29 in Seattle. She was 78.
Hazelton had been diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer and chose to take her own life, as Washington State’s Death with Dignity Act allowed her to do legally.
Dick Rutan, a decorated Vietnam War pilot who in 1986 with co-pilot Jeana Yeager completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history, the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling, died May 3 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He was 85.
The pilots took turns flying the plane and resting in a 2-by-7½-foot cabin adjoining the even smaller cockpit. The trip took nine days.
Rutan, who flew 325 combat missions over Vietnam as an Air Force pilot and was awarded the Silver Star, set another record in 2005 when he flew about 10 miles in a rocket-powered plane launched from the ground in Mojave, California.
Barry Romo, a former Army officer in the Vietnam War who became a leading antiwar organizer and bore witness to devastating U.S. bombing runs on Hanoi during a 1972 visit to North Vietnam with activists including folk singer Joan Baez, died May 1 in Chicago. He was 76.
In April 1971, Romo organized convoys to bring thousands of veterans to Washington for an antiwar encampment.
David Shapiro, a poet and art historian who was indelibly remembered — to his chagrin — as the defiant, cigar-wielding student in a photo that was taken during the 1968 uprising at Columbia University and came to represent the era’s revolutionary zeal, died May 4 in the Bronx. He was 77.
The picture, taken by a fellow student, depicts Shapiro as a 21-year-old undergraduate seated behind the desk of Columbia President Grayson Kirk, whose office student demonstrators had occupied in a protest against the Vietnam War. Shapiro is wearing sunglasses and raising a cigar pilfered from the president’s desk drawers.
Bill Holman, a Grammy Award-winning jazz arranger and composer who helped shape the big-band music of Stan Kenton and Doc Severinsen’s “Tonight Show” orchestra and wrote orchestrations for singers such as Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and Natalie Cole, died May 6 in Los Angeles. He was 96.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing Patty Simcox in the movie “Grease,” died May 2. She was 72.
Buckner, who was Miss Washington in 1971, joined “The Dean Martin Show” as one of the Golddiggers, an all-female singing and dancing group, and appeared in the variety shows “The Mac Davis Show,” “Sonny and Cher” and “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.”
Jeannie Epper, who did stunts for many of the most important women of film and television action of the 1970s and ’80s, including Lynda Carter on TV’s “Wonder Woman,” died May 5 in Simi Valley, California. She was 83.
Steve Albini ,arenowned underground musician and recording engineer, died May 7 of a heart attack. He was 61. Albini fronted indie-rock bands Shellac and Big Black.
Jimmy Johnson, a Hall of Fame cornerback who played 16 seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, died May 8. He was 86. He was the brother of Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson.
Joe Collier, a former head coach of the Buffalo Bills and the architect of the Denver Broncos’ Orange Crush defense, died May 6 in Littleton, Colorado. He was 91.
Collier, who went 1316-1 as the Bills’ coach, spent 20 seasons on the Broncos’ staff.
Cecil “Hootie” Ingram, a former all-Southeastern Conference football player and athletic director at Alabama, died May 6. He was 90.