Deaths of Famous People

Shannen Doherty was a television and film actress whose roles included Jenny Wilder in Little House on the Prairie (1982), Maggie Malene in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985); Kris Witherspoon in Our House (1986–1988), Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990, 2008 and 2019), Prue Halliwell in Charmed (1998) and Dobbs in Fortress (2021). On July 13, 2024, at age 53, she died from breast cancer that had spread through her body.

On July 12, 2023, ‘Dr. Ruth” died at age 96 of complications from a stroke that she first suffered a year before. She was a sex therapist and talk show host who at age 52 in 1980 started her radio show, “Sexually Speaking”, on WYNY-FM in New York City. The show became so popular that at age 56, she hosted several television programs on the Lifetime TV network such as “Good Sex! With Dr. Ruth Westheimer.”

Actor Donald Sutherland died on June 20, 2024, after suffering from prostate cancer and severe lung damage from smoking up to four packs of cigarettes per day. Several year before he died, he stopped smoking and wouldn’t let anyone smoke near him. He kept smokers at least 100 yards away from his movie sets. In his last years, he had to breathe from an oxygen tank all the time.

The track world has lost an epic coach, and society has lost a man who helped to develop leaders among his aspiring athletes. Johnson died of prostate cancer on June 29, 2024, at age 89. He coached athletes in track and field for more than fifty years, with accomplishments that included Track coach at the University of Florida (1975-1979), Stanford University (1979-92) and California Polytechnic State University (1993-96).

On June 18, 2024, Willie Mays died at age 93 from heart failure. He was one of the best baseball players of all time and went straight from high school to playing center field from 1951 to 1973 in the National League for the New York and San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. In his first year in the National League he was the Rookie of the Year, and he hit 20 home runs to help his team win the pennant.

All-Star basketball player Jerry West died with atrial fibrillation on Jun 12, 2024, at the age of 86. He played for the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1960s and early ’70s, was named to 12 All-NBA teams along with five All-Defense teams, and is still the only player in NBA history to win a Finals MVP while playing for the losing team. He averaged 27.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 6.7 assists per game.

As one of the most versatile American singers of all time, Aretha Franklin was best known for singing soul music and popular and gospel songs, but with less than two hours’ notice, she was able to use her powerful mezzo-soprano voice to sing a great opera aria when she stepped in to replace Luciano Pavaroti at the 1998 Grammy Awards.

The oldest living winner of the Indianapolis 500 auto race, Parnelli Jones, died at age 90 on June 4, 2024 after suffering for several years with Parkinson's disease. He was an American professional racing-car driver who later became a racing team owner and a very successful businessman. He won races in sports cars, IndyCars, sprint cars, midget cars, off-road vehicles, and stock cars.

Bill Walton was a professional basketball player and television sportscaster who was:one of the best college basketball players ever in spite of suffering uncountable injuries requiring 38 significant surgeries. He was elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and won three consecutive national college player of the year awards (1972–1974) while leading UCLA to NCAA championships in 1972 and 1973 during an 88-game winning streak. In spite of his injuries, in his senior year he won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Duane Eddy was known as 'The first “rock-n-roll guitar god” because he was the most commercially-successful instrumental-only artist in the history of rock 'n' roll. His style influenced the Shadows, the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen. His recordings sold more than 100 million records worldwide and had 27 Billboards Hot Hundred Top 40 hits. He won a Grammy for best rock instrumental in 1986, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2008, and received a Rockwalk in 1997.

Louis Gossett was a very famous movie and television actor who won the 1982 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a no-nonsense drill sergeant in “An Officer and a Gentleman," where he had prepared for the part by taking field drills with a real marine battalion. He also won an Emmy for his role in the TV miniseries “Roots.” He died at age 87 on March 29, 2024, with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), heart failure, atrial fibrillation and prostate cancer. He had many of the risk factors shared by all of these conditions and other diseases of inflammation: addiction to smoking, alcohol and cocaine, plus use of marijuana and the typically unhealthful U.S. diet of fast foods and ultra-processed foods.

Czechoslovakian Olga Fikotova, the 1956 Olympic Discus Champion, died at age 91 of breast cancer in Costa Mesa, California on April 14, 2024. During the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, Olga met Harold Connolly, the American who won the gold medal in the 16-pound hammer throw. Their Cold War romance sparked a hopeful wish for peace around the world.

Roman Gabriel was a quarterback in the National Football League for 16 years, with the Los Angeles Rams from 1962 to 1972 and the Philadelphia Eagles from 1973 to 1977. In 1969 he led the NFL with 24 touchdown passes and was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. He was in the Pro Bowl in 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1973. At the height of his football career, he appeared in the movie, “Skidoo,” starring Jackie Gleason in 1968, and “The Undefeated” starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson in 1969.

Akebono Taro was the first non-Japanese-born wrestler ever to reach the highest rank in Sumo wrestling and he was also one of the tallest and heaviest Sumo wrestlers ever at 6' 8" in height and more than 500 pounds in weight. Taro retired from wrestling in January 2001 due to multiple injuries, and his massive obesity eventually caused him to die of heart failure at age 54.

O.J. Simpson died from the complications of prostate cancer on April 10, 2024, shortly after he had received chemotherapy. He was 76 years old. He was respected as one of America’s best football players, but lost a lot of personal respect after the 1994 death of his ex-wife and her friend. Simpson is regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time. He played most of his college football at the University of Southern California, where he won the Heisman Trophy as a senior, and was selected first overall by the Buffalo Bills in 1969.

Seiji Ozawa was a classical music conductor who was famous through an incredible number of recordings, radio and television appearances, and world tours. He was the lead conductor of the Chicago Symphony (1964–1968), the Toronto Symphony (1965–1969), the San Francisco Symphony (1970–1977), the Boston Symphony (1973–2002), and the Vienna State Opera (2002–2010). While other conductors wore tuxedos, Ozawa was known to wear a white turtleneck or an open-collared polo shirt with a colorful jacket. On February 4, 2024, at age 88, he died of heart failure caused by complications of the late stages of esophageal cancer.

Ancel Keys was a prolific American scientist who is best known for his early work on heart attack risk factors in the 1950s. His theory was that dietary saturated fats and cholesterol raise blood cholesterol and blood pressure to increase risk for heart attacks.. Also in the 1950s, John Yudkin was the leading spokesman for the theory that sugar and other refined carbohydrates were the main culprits. Yudkin and Keys argued continuously, in journals and at medical meetings, about whether sugar or saturated fats were the prime cause of heart attacks.

John F. Kennedy was probably the sickest U.S. President ever. He suffered from a disease called Autoimmune Polyglandular Syndrome, which was not described until 1981, 18 years after he was assassinated (Medicine, 1981;60(5):355-62). This disease made him miserable by knocking off his thyroid and adrenal glands, and probably his parathyroid glands also.

Joyce Randolph was a stage and television actress who died of “natural causes” at age 99 on January 13, 2024. She was the last surviving member of the cast of the Jackie Gleason television sitcom “The Honeymooners," the story of New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason). The show was about working-class married couples who deal with their absurd lifestyle choices in the Kramden's kitchen in a Brooklyn apartment building.

David Soul was the sad-eyed, blond actor who portrayed Detective Ken Hutchinson in the television series “Starsky & Hutch” from 1975 to 1979. He followed this by singing "Don't Give Up on Us", the number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1977, another top single, "Silver Lady" and four more top-10 entries. In 1995, he moved to England where he continued as a very successful actor on stage and television.

Richard Lewis was a stand-up comedian, actor and author of two self-deprecating books, and for 11 years he played a fictionalized version of himself in the hit HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm." In 2021, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A year ago he retired from stand-up comedy, and on February 24. 2024, he died at age 76 from a heart attack associated with Parkinson’s disease.

Carl Weathers was an actor who was most famous for playing boxer Apollo Creed in the first four "Rocky" films, from 1976 to 1985. He was also a football player who played linebacker for San Diego State in college and the Oakland Raiders in the National Football League. He also had many film and TV roles such as Colonel Al Dillon in Predator (1987), Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore (1996), and Combat Carl in the Toy Story franchise.

Joe Madison was an outstanding talk-radio host who was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2019. He called himself “The Black Eagle” and used talk radio to advocate for racial tolerance, starting when he joined the otherwise all-white lineup at WWRC-AM radio in the early 1990s. He was a close friend of mine as I did a daily talk show on health, fitness and nutrition on the same station during the peak popularity of talk radio. We remained friends and communicated long after the station changed its format in 1998.

Toby Keith was a country music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor and an incredible business entrepreneur who recorded 26 albums that sold more than 40 million copies. He had 61 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, with 20 number one hits and 22 additional top 10 hits. His best known songs include "Beer for My Horses," "As Good as I Once Was," "Should've Been a Cowboy," "Red Solo Cup," and "How Do You Like Me Now." He received a National Medal of Arts from President Trump in 2021.

Leonard Bernstein was one of America’s greatest composers and conductors. He was a pianist, arranger, educator, author and television personality, and wrote some of our best-loved musicals: West Side Story, Candide, and On The Town.

Charles Osgood was a brilliant radio and TV host who died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was best known for being the host of CBS News Sunday Morning TV show for 22 years, from April 1994 until September 2016, and of daily radio reports, “The Osgood File,” for 46 years, from 1971 until 2017. He was probably suffering from memory lapses when he announced his retirement as anchor of Sunday Morning, about eight years before his death.

The film Oppenheimer is scheduled to be released on July 21, 2023, by Universal Pictures. It describes the emotional price Robert Oppenheimer paid for creating the atomic bomb.  Seventy-five years ago, on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States detonated two atom bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people.

Adan Canto was a Mexican- born American actor in television series includimg “The Cleaning Lady”, “The Following”, “Designated Survivor”, “Narcos” and “Blood and Oil." He played Sunspot in the movie “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” and he wrote and directed the films “Before Tomorrow and “The Shot”.

Frank Ryan was an all-star quarterback in the National Football League in his 13 years primarily with the Cleveland Browns, and he was also an outstanding mathematician. He received his bachelor degree in physics and his Ph.D. in mathematics from prestigious Rice University. From 1967 to 1971 was a math professor at Case Western Reserve, often teaching math classes in the morning and going to football practice with the Cleveland Browns in the afternoon.

Tom Smothers and his brother, Dick, were known as “The Smothers Brothers”, a music, comedy and political statement team whose hit television show was the 16th most popular show on television in its first season. It ran on CBS television from 1965 through 1970, when the network abruptly cancelled the program, presumably because the brothers took strong stands on recreational drugs, sex, the Vietnam War and other topics that were heavily censored.