Rest in Peace

"Celebrity deathwatches" have a negative rep as macabre, distasteful, and disrespectful, and sometimes live up to that, as for example when entrants put their bets on the assassination of politicians, or get all giddy and gleeful when Amy Winehouse dies because they quite plausibly gave Winehouse spots on their lists that year. That's not what interests me. I've mean making a yearly list since 2008 when I became aware of  the Old Blue Eyes Memorial Celebrity Death Watch:

http://www.flymetothetomb.x10.com/

I think I submitted a list there for a year or two, but their rules about who constitutes a "celebrity" were always restrictive and became much more so, leaving out most of the world's major literary writers, classical composers, etc., so I lost interest in their site.

From 2008 to 2010, my lists were 14 names long, which was the O.B.E. number (13 plus an alternate). I expanded to 20 names in 2011. My way of making the list has remained the same, and it zeroes in on the "Memorial" concept. I wish not to disrespect, but to honor those who have made significant contributions in fields that matter to me over the course of a long lifetime. I don't start to track people at all until the year in which they turn 90. As time has gone on, most of the names on the list will be centenarians already, or become so that year (12/20 last year, 13/20 this year). Once I put a name on the list, they stay on it until their passing away makes them ineligible.

You might think that if you were aiming to WIN a death watch - I don't enter my list anywhere anymore - you would want as many centenarians as possible. I can tell you that this is faulty reasoning. Once people make it to 98 or so, they are proven long livers, and there is really no predicting how many years they have got left. Four names on this year's list have been on my list for all seven years - Portuguese film director Manoel de Oliveira (turning 106 this year), two-time Oscar-winning actress Luise Rainer (104), opera singer Magda Olivero (104), and Hong Kong film producer Run Run Shaw, who died two days ago on January 7 at age 106. Trust me, these folks are durable.

On last year's list of 20, only three died during 1913 (highlighted below):

1. Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908) (6^th year)
2. Luise Rainer (b. 1910) (6^th year)
3. Magda Olivero (b. 1910) (6^th year)
4. Run Run Shaw (b. 1907) (6^th year)
5. Tyrus Wong (b. 1910) (4^th year)
6. Lupita Tovar (b. 1910)
7. Rise Stevens (b. 1913/d. 2013)
8. Licia Albanese (b. 1913)
9. Richard L. Bare (b. 1913)
10. Nicanor Parra (b. 1914)
11. Norman Lloyd (b. 1914)
12. Khushwant Singh (b. 1915)
13. Herman Wouk (b. 1915)
14. Eli Wallach (b. 1915)
15. Carla Laemmle (b. 1909)
16. Ronald Coase (b. 1910/d. 2013)
17. M.H. Abrams (b. 1912)
18. Robert Dahl (b. 1915)
19. Henri Dutilleux (b. 1916/d. 2013)
20. David Douglas Duncan (b. 1916)

Here is this year's list:

1. Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908) (7^th year)
2. Luise Rainer (b. 1910) (7^th year)
3. Magda Olivero (b. 1910) (7^th year)
4. Run Run Shaw (b. 1907/d. 2014) (7^th year)
5. Tyrus Wong (b. 1910) (5^th year)
6. Lupita Tovar (b. 1910) (4^th year)
7. Licia Albanese (b. 1913) (4^th year)
8. Richard L. Bare (b. 1913)
9. Nicanor Parra (b. 1914)
10. Norman Lloyd (b. 1914)
11. Khushwant Singh (b. 1915)
12. Herman Wouk (b. 1915)
13. Eli Wallach (b. 1915)
14. Carla Laemmle (b. 1909)
15. M.H. Abrams (b. 1912)
16. Robert Dahl (b. 1915)
17. David Douglas Duncan (b. 1916)
18. Alice Herz-Sommer (b. 1903)
19. H. Owen Reed (b. 1910)
20. Boris Pahor (b. 1913)

Interestingly, this year's three additions - Herz-Sommer, Reed, and Pahor - are all individuals whose eligibility and accomplishments I became aware of during 2013. That happens quite a bit.

Here are the other people who had at least reached the year in which they would turn 90, who are on my list of notable 2013 passings:

 Ada Louise Huxtable (b. 1921/d. 2013)

James M. Buchanan (b. 1919/d. 2013)

Robert Kee (b. 1919/d. 2013)

Stan Musial (b. 1920/d. 2013)

Abigail Van Buren (b. 1918/d. 2013)

Patty Andrews (b. 1918/d/ 2013)

Wolfgang Sawallisch (b. 1923/d/ 2013)

Barnaby Conrad (b. 1922/d. 2013)

Deanna Durbin (b. 1921/d. 2013)

Ray Harryhausen (b. 1920/d. 2013)

C. Everett Koop (b. 1916/d. 2013)

Harold Shapero (b. 1920/d. 2013)

Robert Ward (b. 1917/d. 2013)

Jack Vance (b. 1916/d. 2013)

Jean Stapleton (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Esther Williams (b. 1921/d. 2013)

Peter Kane Dufault (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Walter Jens (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Joaquin Cordero (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Slim Whitman (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Marc Simont (b. 1915/d. 2013)

Helen Thomas (b. 1920/d. 2013)

Michael Ansara (b. 1922/d. 2013)

Regina Resnik (b. 1922/d. 2013)

Ted Post (b. 1918/d. 2013)

Marian McPartland (b. 1918/d. 2013)

Gilbert Taylor (b. 1914/d. 2013)

Frederik Pohl (b. 1919/d. 2013)

Ilja Hurnik (b. 1922/d. 2013)

Albert Murray (b. 1916/d. 2013)

Marcel Reich-Ranicki (b. 1920/d. 2013)

Carolyn Cassady (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Alvaro Mutis (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Frederik Pohl (b. 1919/d. 2013)

Doris Lessing (b. 1919/d. 2013)

William Weaver (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Miguel Morayta (b. 1907/d. 2013)

Stanley Kauffmann (b. 1916/d. 2013)

Nelson Mandela (b. 1918/d. 2013)

Eleanor Parker (b. 1922/d. 2013)

Audrey Totter (b. 1917/d. 2013)

Joan Fontaine (b. 1917/d. 2013)

Dale Robertson (b. 1923/d. 2013)

Yusuf Lateef (b. 1920/d. 2013)

Lisa Otto (b. 1919/d. 2013)

Marta Eggerth (b. 1912/d. 2013)

There has been one other relevant death so far in 2014 besides Run Run Shaw, an Oscar-nominated actress who somehow hadn't made it onto my radar for this list:

Juanita Moore (b. 1914/d. 2014)

It is no exaggeration to say that by keeping up with this little diversion, I learn an enormous amount about incredible people who have made this sometimes hopeless-seeming world a better place. I like that.

For example, Marta Eggerth, one of the last passings of 2013 (December 26, at age 101), was a Hungarian operetta singer who frequently co-starred on stage, on film, and in recordings with her husband, the Polish tenor Jan Kiepura (1902-1966). Because they both had Jewish ancestry, they prudently relocated to the U.S. before World War II began.

http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2013/12/martha-eggerth-dies-aged-101.html

This lovely clip is from one of the last films they made together in Europe before the war, Zauber der Boheme (1937). They make an appealing couple!