Among those who died in 2019...

earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director, a first for an African

American, died April 28, age 51.

Peter Mayhew, 7-foot-3 actor who played Chewbacca, Han Solo’s towering, furry sidekick in Star Wars, died April 30, age 74.

Doris Day (pictured), actress and singer whose wholesome onscreen personality and honey voice made her America’s top boxoffice star in the early 1960s, died May 13, age 97.

Rip Torn, feisty actor who won an Emmy for his role as Artie the producer on The Larry Sanders Show, died July 9, age 88.

Rutger Hauer, Hollywood’s go-to villain who played a psychopathic hitchhiker in The Hitcher and a murderous android in Blade Runner, died July 19, age 75.

Hal Prince, producer and director who helped create some of Broadway’s most enduring hits, including Cabaret and The Phantom of the Opera, died July 31, age 91.

D.A. Pennebaker, pioneering documentary filmmaker who got up close with Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back, died Aug. 1, age 94.

Peter Fonda (pictured), freespirited actor and producer who kick-started the independent-film movement of the 1970s with Easy Rider, died Aug. 16, age 79.

Music and the arts

André Previn, musical polymath who cut a path through the worlds of Hollywood, jazz, pop, and classical music as a pianist, composer, and conductor, died Feb. 28, age 89.

Hal Blaine, elite session drummer who laid down the beat on some 35,000 songs, including the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” died March 11, age 90.

Dick Dale (pictured), rapid-fire King of the Surf Guitar, who played so fast his picks would melt and his strings snap, died March 16, age 81.

Dan Robbins, artist who tried to make “every man a Rembrandt” with his invention of paint-by-number kits in the 1950s, died April 1, age 93.

Dr. John, pianist and singer who mixed boogie-woogie, swamp blues, and R&B to create a musical gumbo that embodied his native New Orleans, died June 6, age 77.

João Gilberto, Brazilian guitar virtuoso who turned the world on to bossa nova, died

July 6, age 88.

Ric Ocasek, frontman of new wave sensations the Cars, who wrote the ubiquitous radio hits “Just What I Needed” and

“Drive,” died Sept. 15, age 75.

Jessye Norman, operatic soprano who dazzled audiences and critics with the sheer power and versatility of her voice, died Sept. 30, age 74.

Ginger Baker, virtuosic drummer and rock wild man who rose to fame in the supergroup Cream, died Oct. 6, age 80.

Alicia Alonso (pictured), almostblind Cuban dancer who was named prima ballerina assoluta—the highest honor in ballet—and founded the National Ballet of Cuba, died Oct. 17, age 98.

Irving Burgie, singer, lyricist, and composer who wrote Harry Belafonte’s smash “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and got the world grooving to Caribbean rhythms, died Nov. 29, age 95.