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A glance again on the esteemed personalities who left us this yr, who’d touched us with their innovation, creativity and humanity.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan. The Related Press contributed to this gallery.
Russian opposition chief Alexey Navalny (June 4, 1976-February 16, 2024) grew to become a world image of freedom in an more and more autocratic nation, as he led a campaign towards corruption within the Kremlin, particularly President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia occasion, which he labeled “the occasion of crooks and thieves.” And he by no means stopped railing towards his authorities, even after he was focused with politically-motivated prosecutions, imprisoned, and even poisoned with Novichok, in an try on his life that captured the eye of the world.
An lawyer who did a fellowship at Yale College, Navalny gained notoriety by attacking corruption inside Russia’s political and enterprise worlds. By specializing in the notion of unusual Russians being cheated slightly than on human rights abuses, Navalny’s investigations (resembling revealing the ostentatious nation estates of the politically-connected) went viral on social media, resonating with youthful Russians removed from Moscow and St. Petersburg. It helped him set up a community of regional places of work for his group, the Anti-Corruption Basis, and allowed unprecedented rallies towards the ruling occasion, protesting suspicious election outcomes.
He was convicted in 2013 of embezzlement (he denounced the fees as political retribution) and was sentenced to 5 years in jail, however later launched, his sentence suspended following protests within the capital.
Navalny did espouse an overt nationalism – he supported the rights of ethnic Russians, and the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia, a transfer decried by the remainder of the world as unlawful – however his continued assaults on Putin made him an internationally-known resistance determine. He ran for mayor of Moscow, coming in second.
Whereas in jail in 2019 for protesting an election, Navalny fell ailing with what authorities mentioned was an allergic response, however medical doctors mentioned was poisoning.
In August 2020, Navalny grew to become severely ailing on a flight from the Siberian metropolis of Tomsk to Moscow. He later advised “60 Minutes,” “I mentioned to the flight attendant – and I form of shocked him with my assertion – ‘Nicely, I used to be poisoned, and I’ll die.’ And I instantly laid down below his toes.”
The aircraft diverted to Omsk, the place he was hospitalized. Supporters begged medical doctors to permit him to be taken to Germany for remedy. As soon as there, medical doctors surmised he’d been poisoned with a nerve agent much like what almost killed former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England two years earlier. Navalny remained in a medically-induced coma for round two weeks.
The Kremlin denied it was behind the poisoning, however Navalny launched a recording of a telephone name through which an FSB officer admitted the assassination try and subsequent try to cowl it up. [The call was the centerpiece of the Oscar-winning documentary “Navalny,” filmed during his recovery and later return to Russia.]
His arrest upon arrival in Moscow in early 2021 sparked protests that resulted in additional than 10,000 individuals detained by police. A court docket then outlawed the Anti-Corruption Basis, deeming it an extremist group.
Whereas in jail, he protested, by way of social media, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and obtained a further nine-year sentence. Later, on fees he referred to as fabricated, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in jail, which he understood was “a life sentence, which is measured by the size of my life or the size of lifetime of this regime.”
Seiji Ozawa
Born in China of Japanese dad and mom, internationally-acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa (September 1, 1935-February 6, 2024) lived a life mixing the cultures of East and West. He led the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 2002 (longer than some other conductor within the orchestra’s historical past), and from 2002 to 2010 was music director of the Vienna State Opera.
Whereas he was a pupil in Japan, Ozawa suffered a rugby accident through which he broke two fingers. It ended his piano taking part in, however his music trainer steered he take up conducting as an alternative.
In 1960 got here to the U.S. and attended the Tanglewood Music Heart, the place he was noticed by New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein, who appointed him assistant conductor for the Philharmonic’s 1961-62 season. Making his New York debut at age 25, The New York Instances praised Ozawa: “The music got here brilliantly alive below his path.”
Ozawa led numerous teams, together with orchestras in San Francisco and Toronto, earlier than being named head of the BSO in 1970. The primary Asian conductor to achieve such skilled ranges within the West, he introduced star high quality and an incredible physicality to the rostrum, and helped elevate the worldwide reputations of each Boston’s orchestra and the music middle at Tanglewood.
His presence prolonged past the live performance corridor. In 1998 he led choruses on 5 continents in a live-via-satellite efficiency of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the opening of the Nagano Winter Olympic Video games. He earned two Emmys for his TV broadcasts, and in November 2022 he beamed a efficiency of Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture to Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata on the Worldwide Area Station, as a part of the “One Earth Mission – Unite with Music” initiative.
“Music can hyperlink the hearts of individuals – transcending phrases, borders, faith, and politics,” Ozawa mentioned in a press release. “It’s my hope that via music, we might be reminded that we’re the entire identical human race residing on the identical planet … and that we’re united.”
He additionally co-founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra in 1984 (they received a Grammy for greatest opera recording in 2016), and was creative director and founding father of the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Competition, a music and opera pageant in Japan. He obtained a Kennedy Heart Honor in 2015.
Talking with “Sunday Morning” in 1998, Ozawa likened main an orchestra to snowboarding. “After I conduct, focus is most vital that second, and I overlook every part however that second, this music. Ski, I feel, identical, whenever you come down gradual, you can not suppose different issues, simply have to pay attention.”
Toby Keith
A singer, actor, and businessman, nation artist Toby Keith (July 8, 1961-February 5, 2024) considered himself before everything a songwriter. “God’s reward to me was to be a author,” he advised “Sunday Morning” in 2006, “and that is what I do better of all, and I am as gifted at that as anyone.” Gifted sufficient to promote 40 million information and run his personal document label.
Keith grew up in Oklahoma, performed a little bit of semi-pro soccer, and labored within the oil fields till jobs dried up. All of the whereas, he struggled to make it in nation music. When his debut album was launched in 1993, the track “Ought to’ve Been a Cowboy,” went to #1 on the nation charts.
He would log 42 High 10 hits on the Billboard nation charts, with 20 peaking at #1, together with “How Do You Like Me Now?!,” “I Wanna Discuss About Me,” “I Love This Bar,” “Whiskey Woman,” “As Good As I As soon as Was,” “Pink Solo Cup,” and “Beer For My Horses” (a duet with Willie Nelson).
However the track that made Keith a famous person was his emotional response to the assaults of 9/11. He mentioned that he wrote “Courtesy of the Pink, White and Blue” in 20 minutes, simply days after the assaults, partly as a tribute to his father, a veteran. Subtitled “The Offended American,” the track does not mince phrases:
You may be sorry that you simply messed with the US of A,
as a result of we’ll put a boot in your ass,
it is the American method.
The track introduced him a lot consideration, professional and con, together with a public feud with the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines, who referred to as it ignorant. Keith rode the track and the controversy all the way in which to the financial institution.
He adopted with “American Soldier,” which grow to be a favourite of U.S. forces abroad, a lot of whom attended his USO excursions. However standing with the troops did not imply he stood with America’s determination to enter Iraq. “When the Iraq conflict began, I used to be a bit mad as a result of we did not end what we began in Afghanistan,” he advised “Sunday Morning.” “However our troops needed to transfer on into Iraq, our authorities requested them to go do it for no matter cause. We can’t know for most likely 20 or 30 years whether or not it was the precise factor to do or not.”
And whereas the songs meant many pegged Keith as conservative, he mentioned he disenchanted many Republicans who referred to as him for help: “They go, ‘You are a Republican, proper?’ And also you go, ‘Nicely, I am truly a number of instances Democrat.’ After which they go, ‘Oh, sorry.’ And the Democrats need so dangerous, the true liberals actually need to hate me, after which they go, ‘I nonetheless hate you, however I can not consider you are a Democrat.’ … So, I am not an actual political man. I am a really patriotic man.”
Carl Weathers
After three years of taking part in skilled soccer, Carl Weathers (January 14, 1948-February 2, 2024) transitioned to Hollywood motion star, bringing a towering physicality and deft humor to roles in such movies as “Rocky,” “Predator,” and “Completely satisfied Gilmore.”
Rising up in New Orleans, Weathers had carried out in performs in grade faculty. However he pursued soccer, taking part in school ball at San Diego State College (whereas majoring in theater), and taking part in linebacker for the Oakland Raiders in 1970. Afterwards, he performed two years within the Canadian Soccer League, whereas taking appearing classes within the offseason at San Francisco State College.
He had appearances in such TV sequence as “King Fu,” “The Six Million Greenback Man,” “S.W.A.T.,” and “Cannon,” and the blaxploitation movie “Friday Foster,” earlier than taking over his best-known position: Apollo Creed, the world-champion boxer whom the seemingly outmatched Rocky Balboa faces within the ring, within the 1976 Oscar-winner “Rocky.”
In a 2015 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Weathers recalled that he was requested to audition with the movie’s author, Stallone (an actor with few credit at the moment). Weathers learn the scene however felt it did not work. He remarked, “I might do rather a lot higher if you happen to acquired me an actual actor to work with.”
The verbal jab – as an alternative of placing him off – made Stallone really feel it was in character with Apollo Creed. “Typically the errors are those that get you the gig,” Weathers mentioned. Or, the falsehoods (he lied that he had boxing expertise).
Weathers returned to the character of Creed in three “Rocky” sequels, assembly his finish towards the steroid-infused Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV.”
Weathers additionally performed an imposing army policeman in “Shut Encounters of the Third Variety,” and appeared in “Semi-Robust,” “Drive 10 From Navarone,” and “Demise Hunt,” earlier than starring reverse Arnold Schwarzenegger within the 1987 sci-fi actioner “Predator.” The next yr he had prime billing in “Motion Jackson.”
He starred within the sequence “Chicago Justice,” performed a thrifty Hollywood star named Carl Weathers who turns into an appearing coach in “Arrested Improvement,” and earned an Emmy nomination for the “Star Wars” sequence, “The Mandalorian.” He additionally offered the voice of Fight Carl in Pixar’s “Toy Story” franchise.
Weathers additionally directed episodes of “Silk Stalkings,” “Sheena,” “Hawaii 5-O,” “FBI,” “Legislation & Order,” “Chicago Med,” and “The Final O.G.”
Chita Rivera
“I at all times used to suppose that we must always have two lifetimes: one to attempt it out, and the second to know what’s coming,” Broadway star Chita Rivera (January 23, 1933-January 30, 2024) advised “Sunday Morning” in 2023. However nobody would mistake Rivera’s life for a rehearsal. The theatrical legend received three Tony Awards, obtained a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was the primary Latina Kennedy Heart Honoree. Rivera grew to become a star taking part in Anita within the unique Broadway manufacturing of West Facet Story.” She adopted that with performances within the unique productions of “Chicago,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” and “Kiss of the Spider Girl.”
Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Montestuco Florentina Carnemacaral del Fuente, in Washington, D.C., her Puerto Rican father died when she was seven years previous; her mom was left to boost 5 youngsters. As a small baby, Dolores jumped from one piece of lounge furnishings to a different. “I missed one time, and I went via the espresso desk,” mentioned Rivera. “And my mom mentioned, ‘That is it, you are out of right here. You are going to a ballet faculty.'”
At 16, Rivera was accepted into New York’s elite Faculty of American Ballet. However she quickly deserted ballet for Broadway, showing in “Guys and Dolls,” “Can-Can,” “Seventh Heaven,” and “Mr. Fantastic,” starring Sammy Davis, Jr. He advised Rivera to not promote herself quick, that she had the expertise to be a star, which she quickly proved in “West Facet Story,” dancing, appearing and singing.
She would star in “Bye Bye Birdie,” “Chicago,” “Carry Again Birdie” (a fated sequel), “Merlin,” “The Rink” (with Liza Minnelli), “Jerry’s Ladies,” “Kiss of the Spider Girl,” “9,” “The Thriller of Edwin Drood,” “The Go to,” and the revue, “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life.” She appeared within the films “Candy Charity,” “Chicago,” and “Tick … Tick … Increase!,” and on TV in “The Marcus-Nelson Murders” (the pilot for “Kojak”), “Mayflower Madam,” “Will & Grace,” and was the voice of the Witch in “Dora the Explorer.”
In 1986, a automobile accident left her with 12 pins and two plates in her left leg. Rivera not solely recovered; she went on to win a Tony, dancing the title position in “Kiss of the Spider Girl.” “I do consider that being a dancer gave me the power to struggle, and to face up to, and to manage,” Rivera mentioned. “If I come again, I need to come again a dancer. That will be my second life.”
Charles Osgood
Award-winning journalist Charles Osgood (January 8, 1933-January 23, 2024) was anchor of “CBS Sunday Morning” for 22 years, and for greater than 4 a long time was author and host of the long-running radio program “The Osgood File.”
In his near-half-century at CBS Information, Osgood labored on nearly each broadcast on the community, together with the “CBS Morning Information,” the “CBS Night Information with Dan Quite,” and the “CBS Sunday Evening Information,” and interviewed such luminaries as chef Julia Baby, graffiti artist-turned-gallery star Keith Haring, painter Andrew Wyeth, sculptor Louise Nevelson, and singer-songwriter Sting.
A gifted newswriter (he was sometimes called the community’s poet-in-residence) along with his trademark bowtie, Osgood was referred to as “one of many final nice broadcast writers” by Charles Kuralt, whom Osgood succeeded as host of “Sunday Morning” in 1994. Throughout his run on the journal program, it reached its highest rankings ranges in three a long time, and thrice earned the Daytime Emmy as Excellent Morning Program.
He continued writing his “Osgood File” radio experiences as much as 4 instances a day, 5 days per week. “Quick phrases, quick sentences, quick paragraphs,” Osgood mentioned. “There’s nothing that may’t be improved by making it shorter and higher.”
And his experiences usually rhymed, providing piquant commentary on the day’s occasions. He mentioned some tales have been simply naturals that he knew instantly he might make rhymes of within the rushed 60 to 90 minutes he had every morning to compose them. He mentioned, “Some information is sweet and a few is worse, and a few information goes from dangerous to verse.”
In 1984 he provided this report on the Nut Tree Harvest Competition’s scarecrow adorning contest in Vacaville, Calif.:
When it is time for Halloween-ing,
there’s one factor you need to know,
It is best to steer clear of Nut Tree,
that’s, if you’re a crow.
For they go to countless hassle there
to get crows off their backs,
And to make crows really feel unwelcome,
And to offer crows coronary heart assaults.
However not everybody within the viewers was a fan. “We truly had a dying menace within the newsroom,” Osgood recalled in 2016. “Any individual referred to as up and he mentioned, ‘Inform Osgood that if he does any extra of these silly poems, I am gonna kill him!'”
Amongst his broadcasting honors, Osgood obtained the George Foster Peabody Award, the Nationwide Affiliation of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award, and 5 Emmys, together with a lifetime achievement honor in 2017. He was inducted into the Nationwide Affiliation of Broadcasters Corridor of Fame in 1990, and the Broadcasting and Cable Corridor of Fame in 2000.
He additionally wrote quite a few books, together with “A Humorous Factor Occurred on the Option to the White Home,” “Nothing May Be Finer Than a Disaster That Is Minor within the Morning,” “There’s Nothing I Would not Do if You Would Be My POSSLQ,” and his childhood memory, “Defending Baltimore Towards Enemy Assault.”
However he was greater than a storyteller; he might additionally play piano, organ, banjo, violin, and was an achieved composer and lyricist. (He had a High 40 hit in 1966 along with his ballad for the armed forces, “Gallant Males.”) He additionally carried out with The New York Pops, The Boston Pops and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Peter Schickele
Musical satirist Peter Schickele (July 17, 1935-January 16, 2024) made a reputation for himself as a performer and a composer of music for the live performance corridor and movies. However his title was overshadowed by that of his creation: P.D.Q. Bach, described because the least gifted of Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20-ish youngsters, whose compositions would, within the phrases of Schickele, “catapult him into obscurity.” Nobody knew the composer even existed till Schickele mentioned he found considered one of P.D.Q. Bach’s manuscripts getting used as a espresso strainer at a fort in Bavaria.
The satirist truly created P.D.Q. whereas on the college of the Juilliard Faculty of Music in New York, creating works for the live performance corridor that lampooned classical music tropes, whereas including uncommon devices (bathe hose, police siren) within the combine. Schickele’s musical heroes included Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Spike Jones. “I grew up with the Three Stooges, in addition to Bach and Mozart, and it is all there,” he advised “Sunday Morning” in 1984.
“Most satirists make enjoyable of what they like, not what they do not like; and so, musically, it is very a lot a satire of affection,” Schickele mentioned. “I feel the one facet of it that I would not thoughts seeing modified a bit is the aura of kind of sacredness that surrounds the live performance scene.”
The titles have been punny sufficient: “Hansel & Gretel & Ted & Alice” (which Schickele referred to as “an opera in a single unnatural act”), “Concerto for Horn and Hardart,” “Eine Kleine Nichtmusik,” “Erotica Variations,” “Fanfare for the Widespread Chilly,” “The Quick-Tempered Clavier,” “Concerto for Piano vs. Orchestra,” “The Solely Piece Ever Written for Violin and Tuba,” and a “merely grand” opera titled “The Abduction of Figaro.”
He would spend half the yr writing severe compositions, and the opposite half doing P.D.Q. Bach music, which was launched as albums, resembling “The Stoned Visitor,” “Music You Cannot Get Out of Your Head,” and “1712 Overture and Different Musical Assaults.” His e book, “The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach,” bought 100,000 copies.
If there may be one attribute of P.D.Q. Bach’s music that stands out above all others, it is what Schickele known as “manic plagiarism.” “Now, many 18th century composers, generally even the best ones, like Haydn and Mozart, would often use a theme by considered one of their colleagues, however I feel P.D.Q. Bach was the one composer who labored on tracing paper,” Schickele mentioned, introducing considered one of P.D.Q.’s items.
Classical music could also be severe enterprise, however not when Schickele was concerned. At performances through which he launched the discoveries of but extra P.D.Q. works, he may arrive by way of a rope dangling from the balcony.
Schickele advised “Sunday Morning” that rehearsals are vital, if solely to stop matches of laughter from affecting the musicians’ taking part in: “One of many causes we now have rehearsals is in order that musicians can snigger. However, hopefully, within the efficiency, musicians are going to have heard the music sufficient in order that they’ll management themselves, significantly the wind gamers, after all, we’re involved about, as a result of the string gamers can snigger and nonetheless maintain going, however the wind gamers undoubtedly pose an issue.”
Joyce Randolph
Veteran stage and tv actor Joyce Randolph (October 21, 1924-January 13, 2024) was greatest remembered as Trixie, the spouse of the dim Ed Norton, on the traditional sitcom “The Honeymooners.” She was the final surviving solid member of the beloved sitcom that additionally starred Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows and Artwork Carney.
Originating as a skit on Gleason’s Fifties selection present, “Cavalcade of Stars,” “The Honeymooners” grew to become a sequence of its personal in 1955. Its one season on CBS, comprised of 39 episodes, would entertain generations in syndicated reruns.
Randolph retired from appearing as soon as the present ended, partly as a result of the outsized influence of the character meant she was typecast. Lively with fundraisers, Broadway openings and the usO., Randolph mentioned she did not absolutely notice the influence of the present till her son attended school within the early Nineteen Eighties. “He got here residence and mentioned, ‘Do you know that guys and women come as much as me and ask, ‘Is your mother actually Trixie?'” she advised The San Antonio Specific in 2000. “I suppose he hadn’t paid a lot consideration earlier than then.”
In a 2007 interview with The New York Instances, Randolph mentioned she obtained no royalties from the syndication of the unique episodes, however did so as soon as “misplaced” episodes – sketches repackaged from Gleason’s selection reveals – have been aired.
Glynis Johns
British actress Glynis Johns (October 5, 1923-January 4, 2024) was best-known on display for her portrayal of a suffragette and mom within the Disney traditional “Mary Poppins,” and on stage for her Tony-winning flip in Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Evening Music.”
Johns was the fourth era of actors in her household (she was born in Pretoria, South Africa, as a result of her dad and mom have been touring on the time), and was first carried on stage at age three weeks. She was acting on London’s West Finish by age 14. Her early movie credit included “forty ninth Parallel,” “The Magic Field,” “The Sword and the Rose,” “Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue,” “The Beachcomber,” “The Court docket Jester,” “Across the World in 80 Days,” “Loser Take All,” “One other Time, One other Place,” “Shake Arms with the Satan,” “The Spider’s Internet,” “The Chapman Repot,” and “The Sundowners,” for which she obtained an Oscar nomination for greatest supporting actress.
In 1963 she starred within the comedy sequence “Glynis,” taking part in a thriller writer-turned-amateur sleuth.
The next yr she performed Mrs. Banks reverse Julie Andrews’ magical nanny in “Mary Poppins.” Assembly with Walt Disney (who had produced a few her ’50s movies), she agreed to think about taking the position if she had a solo quantity within the musical. Disney promised her that he had one specifically for her – after which, raced over to the Sherman Brothers to ask them to hurriedly write a solo quantity for Mrs. Banks.
On stage Johns starred in a 1956 Broadway manufacturing of George Bernard Shaw’s “Main Barbara,” directed by Charles Laughton, and, in 1963, Shaw’s “Too True to Be Good.” She additionally starred in a stage model of the comedy “Harold and Maude.” In 1973 she received a Tony for “A Little Evening Music,” starring as Desiree Armfeldt, an actress whose fame is fading. Sondheim wrote the present’s breakout track, the melancholy “Ship within the Clowns,” for Johns’ distinctive husky voice, whereas she was in rehearsals.
“I’ve had different songs written for me, however nothing like that,” Johns advised the AP in 1990. “It is the best reward I’ve ever been given within the theater.”
She additionally starred within the 1989 Broadway revival of W. Somerset Maugham’s romantic comedy “The Circle,” with Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger.
Often called a perfectionist, she took roles that have been sophisticated and multi-faceted. “So far as I am involved, I am not eager about taking part in the position on just one stage,” she advised The Related Press in 1990. “The entire level of first-class appearing is to make a actuality of it. To be actual. And I’ve to make sense of it in my very own thoughts as a way to be actual.”
Although she had, by her accounts, retired “many instances,” she stored returning to appearing, with appearances on TV (“Batman,” “Little Gloria … Completely satisfied at Final,” “The Love Boat,” “Cheers,” “Homicide, She Wrote”) and movies (“The Ref,” “Whereas You Have been Sleeping,” “Celebrity”). “The theater is simply a part of my life,” she advised the AP. “It most likely makes use of my highest sense of intelligence, so subsequently I’ve to come back again to it, to appreciate that I’ve acquired the expertise. I am not nearly as good doing the rest.”
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