In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
Kalim Sharafi was a BangladeshiRabindra Sangeet singer and cultural revolutionary. He gave his ideas in several publications regarding politics, culture, and Tagore. He is regarded as one of the best Rabindra sangeet singers in the subcontinent.[2]
(Bengali: কলিম শরাফী) (8 May 1924 – 2 Nov 2010[1])
Early life
Kalim Sharafi was born in Birbhun village of West Bengal on 8 May, 1924. His family was a part of a pir family who came from Sonargaon. His passion for music blossomed at an early age as he came across with renowned artists of pre-independent India. He said, "As a child I used to find Rabindranath’s compositions naturally melodic and heart touching and would grasp them easily".[2]
Politics
Sharafi was involved in politics at the age of 18 as he joined the Quit India movement in 1942. Consequently, he was arrested by the police from his village and spent more than a year in prison with other activists.[2]
Career
Kalim Sharafi was the founding director of Bangladesh Television in 1964. He was a follower of Communism which predominantly disheartened his musical carrier. He was banned from both of the state running media BTV and Bangladesh Betar as a result of his political ideology. Sharafi also worked in Bangladesh Textile Corporation for a while. He is the current president of the "Bangladesh Rabindra Sangeet Shilpi Sangstha".[2] He was also the founder of the music school Sangeet Bhaban.
Family
Sharafi married Noushaba Khatun and have five children including one son and four daughters.[2]
Death
Kalim Sharafi died at his residence on Tuesday 2 November, 2010 at the age of 86. He had been suffering from old age complications.
Honors
Sharafi was awarded Ekushey Padak in 1985 and Shadhinota Padak in 1999.[2] He received the first Rabindra Award 2010 for his contribution in promoting and preserving Rabindra Sangeet.
Jule Meyer Sugarman was a founder of the Head Start Program who also led the program for its first five years died from cancer he was , 83.[1]
(September 23, 1927 – November 2, 2010)
Early life
Born in Cincinnati to Melville Sugarman, a jeweler, and Rachel Meyer, a nursery school teacher, Sugarman entered Western Reserve University (later to become Case Western Reserve University). His studies were cut short by World War II, in which he served in the United States Army as a staff supply sergeant in Japan. He completed his undergraduate degree in public administration at American University.[1]
Professional career
Sugarman worked at various positions in the United States Civil Service Commission starting in 1951. From 1957-1959 he worked in the Office of Management and Budget. He then moved to the United States Department of Justice in the Federal Bureau of Prisons until 1962, when he took a position with the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs at the United States Department of State.[2]
Sugarman, described by Edward Zigler as an "administrative genius", served as the executive secretary of the 13-member planning panel that was commissioned by Lyndon Johnson to create Head Start as part of the War on Poverty. The team included specialists in education, pediatricians and psychologists who designed a program aimed at ending the cycle in which children become "inheritors of poverty's curse". Originally proposed as a summer program, Head Start quickly morphed into a year-long program. Sugarman took over as head of the program from Julius B. Richmond, the original holder of that post, when Richmond became ill.[1]
Following the advice of Sargent Shriver of the Office of Economic Opportunity "to write Head Start across this land so that no Congress or president will ever destroy it", Sugarman oversaw the immediate increase of enrollment in the program to more than double the projected number of participants, starting with 560,000 children in the first year versus a target of only 250,000. In subsequent years the program exceeded 700,000 participants. By the time of his death, Head Start was serving 900,000 children annually and had served 27 million children since its inception.[1]
During the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Sugarman served as vice chairman on the Civil Service Commission and in the Office of Personnel Management.[3]
In 1992 Sugarman accepted the position of Interim executive director of the Gray Panthers, then on the brink of insolvency, to help the group reorganize its by-laws, its board of directors, and its fundraising.[4]
Death
Sugarman died at age 83 of cancer on November 2, 2010, at his home in Seattle.[1] He was survived by his second wife, as well as three children and eight grandchildren. His first wife, Sheila Shanley Sugarman, had died in 1983, while a son had died in 2002.[3]
Litzenberger was born in Neudorf, Saskatchewan. He stood 6 foot 3 and his playing weight was 194 pounds. He won the Calder Trophy as the outstanding rookie in the National Hockey League in 1955.[1] He has the unusual distinction of having won four consecutive Stanley Cups while playing for two different teams. He was Captain of the 1961 champion Chicago Black Hawks. Litzenberger also won the Stanley Cup in 1962, 1963 and 1964 with the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1964, his last NHL season, Litzenberger played 19 regular season games and one game in the Cup finals. His name was left off the Stanley Cup, even though he qualified by playing in the finals. Litzenberger then won the Calder Cup in 1965 and 1966 with American Hockey League Rochester Americans. He became the only player in North American hockey history to win six straight pro hockey championships by winning the Stanley Cup in 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964, and the Calder Cup in 1965 and 1966.
During his NHL career, Litzenberger scored 178 regular season goals and added 238 assists in 618 games. In the playoffs he scored five goals and 13 assists in 40 games
He spent his final years living in Ontario.
Charlie O'Donnell was an American radio and television announcer, primarily known for his work on game shows. Among them, he was best known for Wheel of Fortune, where he worked from 1975 to 1980, and again from 1989 until his death he died from heart failure he was , 78.[2]
(August 12, 1932 – November 1, 2010)
Early career
O'Donnell, a native Philadelphian, began his career as a teenager at WCHA in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1956, he worked as program director at WHAT, a 250-watt R&B station in Philadelphia, where he discovered and launched the career of future Philadelphia radio legend Hy Lit. When WIBG became top-40 in 1957, O'Donnell was named news director. In 1958, he became the sidekick of Dick Clark on WFIL-TV's afternoon dance program, American Bandstand. This led to several stints as a disc jockey on Los Angeles radio (most notably on legendary Pasadena station KRLA, 1964–67), and later as news anchorman on Los Angeles television station KCOP-TV.
On November 1, 2010, O'Donnell was reported to have died in his sleep overnight from heart failure at his home in Sherman Oaks, California.[1] He is survived by his wife, Ellen. Shortly before his death, Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert began filling in for O'Donnell on Wheel of Fortune, and was later joined by former The Price Is Right announcer Rich Fields[3] and radio personality Jim Thornton. Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak described O'Donnell as "the perfect voice of the show."[4] O'Donnell's last announced episode aired on Friday, October 29, 2010, three days before his death.
Tavarez was a resident of Bellerose, Queens, New York City, and attended P.S. 176.[1][2] She was chosen to play the role of Nala after a cattle call audition in 2008 at the Apollo Theater.[1]
She became one of two girls who split the role, with each girl performing four shows weekly. Several months after debuting in the show in September 2009, she was forced to leave the production after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. The daughter of an African American mother and a Dominican father,[3] Tavarez faced much greater difficulty in attempts to find a match for a bone marrow transplant as minorities are significantly underrepresented in donor registries, despite efforts by such performers as Alicia Keys, Rihanna and 50 Cent to recruit prospective donors from among their fans. Unsuccessful in finding a bone marrow donor, Tavarez underwent an umbilical cord blood transplant in August 2010.[1]
Lucas played college basketball for head coach Al McGuire at Marquette University for two years, leading it to the NCAA championship game in 1974. Although Marquette did not win the title, Lucas played the full 40 minutes of the game, leading his team with 21 points and 13 rebounds.
ABA
In 1973, the Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association (ABA) obtained that league's rights to Lucas in the first round of the ABA draft.[2] In 1974, Lucas was also selected by the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the 14th pick of the NBA draft.[2] Lucas chose the ABA over the NBA, joining the Spirits of St. Louis team, which had since supplanted the Carolina Cougars in the ABA.[2][3] During his first season, Lucas averaged 13.2 points per game, and 10 rebounds per game, and he was chosen for the 1974–75 ABA All-Rookie second team.[2][3][4]
On December 17, 1975, part way through his second season with the Spirits, Lucas was traded to the Kentucky Colonels in exchange for Caldwell Jones.[2][5] Lucas was an ABA All-Star for the 1975–76 season, and he averaged 17.0 points and 11.3 rebounds per game.[2] Lucas remained with the Colonels through that team's loss in the semifinals of the 1976 ABA Playoffs to the Denver Nuggets and through the ABA-NBA merger in 1976.[2][3][4]
NBA
After the ABA-NBA merger, Lucas was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers in the subsequent ABA Dispersal Draft in which the Kentucky Colonels and Spirits of St. Louis players were selected by NBA teams. Portland had traded Geoff Petrie and Steve Hawes to the Atlanta Hawks for the second overall pick, which they used to select Lucas. In the 1976–77 NBA season, Lucas led the Trail Blazers in scoring, minutes played, field goals, free throws, and offensive rebounds. Not only did the team qualify for their first trip to the playoffs that season, but Lucas and teammate Bill Walton led the Trail Blazers past the favored Los Angeles Lakers, sweeping them 4–0 in the Western Conference Finals, and a surprising come-from-behind 4–2 upset victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1977 NBA Finals.
In that NBA Finals series, Lucas asserted his "enforcer" role in Game 2. With the 76ers comfortably ahead late in the game, the Blazers streaked down the floor on a fast break. Lionel Hollins missed the shot, both Bob Gross and Darryl Dawkins went up and wrestled for the rebound, and both came crashing to the floor. The two appeared ready to come to punches before Lucas slapped Dawkins from behind and challenged him to fight him instead of Gross. Both benches emptied and Dawkins and Lucas were ejected. Although the 76ers would go on to win the game and go up 2–0 in the series, Lucas' actions appeared to alter the momentum of the series in favor of the Blazers. Inspired, Portland won the next two games at home in blowouts, then won at Philadelphia, and closed out the 76ers at home to win the series. Lucas remained with Portland until 1980 when he was traded to the New Jersey Nets.
Lucas next moved through several different teams in several years, playing for the New York Knicks, the Phoenix Suns, the Los Angeles Lakers, helping the Lakers to the Western Conference championship series in the 1986 NBA Playoffs in his only year with that team. Next, Lucas moved to the Seattle SuperSonics for one year, before returning to the Trail Blazers for his final NBA season in 1988.
In his fourteen-year professional basketball career - two in the ABA nd 12 in the NBA - Lucas scored 14,857 points and gathered 9,306 rebounds. He was a five-time All-Star - one in the ABA and four in the NBA. He was named to the 1978 All-NBA-Defense First team, the 1978 All-NBA Second team and the 1979 All-NBA-Defense Second team.
Post-playing career
The Portland Trail Blazers retired his jersey number, 20, in a ceremony on November 4, 1988.[6] Lucas was hired by the team as an assistant coach under Mike Schuler and Rick Adelman during the 1988–89 season. In 2005, Lucas rejoined the Trail Blazers as an assistant coach under Nate McMillan.[7]
On August 23, 1997 at the ABA's 30 Year Reunion celebration, Lucas was named to the All-Time All-NBA Team along with Hall of Fame members Julius Erving, Dan Issel, George Gervin, Rick Barry, Connie Hawkins and other ABA greats.[8]
Current Los Angeles Lakers forward Luke Walton, son of Lucas' Portland teammate Bill Walton, is named after him.[9]
Lucas underwent surgery for bladder cancer in April 2009.[10] With his health continuing to be a concern, Lucas resigned his coaching position following the 2009–2010 season.[11]
His son, David Lucas, played for Oregon State University from 2001–2005.[12]
Lucas died at his home in Portland, Oregon, on October 31, 2010.[13] Services were also held in his boyhood home town, Pittsburgh, PA. [14]
Sorensen was President Kennedy's Special Counsel & Adviser, and primary speechwriter, the role for which he is best remembered today. He was particularly famous for having helped draft the inaugural address in which Kennedy exhorted listeners to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This call to service is the phrase still most closely associated with the Kennedy administration. Although Sorensen played an important part in the composition of the Inaugural Address, "the speech and its famous turn of phrase that everyone remembers was," Sorensen firmly states (counter to what the majority of authors, journalists and other media sources have claimed), "written by Kennedy himself." In later years, when pressed in interviews if he wrote the phrase, Sorenson would reply tongue-in-cheek "Ask not."
In the early months of the administration the scope of Sorensen's responsibilities lay within the domestic agenda; however, after the Bay of Pigs debacle Kennedy asked Sorensen to take part in foreign policy discussions as well. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Sorensen served as a member of ExComm and was named by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as one of the "true inner circle" members who advised the president, the others being Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General Maxwell D. Taylor (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs), former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson and McNamara himself.[5] Sorensen played a critical role in drafting Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev and worked on Kennedy's first address to the nation about the crisis on October 22.
Sorensen was devastated by Kennedy's assassination, which he called "the most deeply traumatic experience of my life...I had never considered a future without him."[6] He later quoted a poem that he said summed up how he felt: 'How could you leave us, how could you die? We are sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out the sky'. He submitted a letter of resignation to President Johnson the day after the assassination but was persuaded to stay through the transition. Sorensen drafted Johnson's first address to Congress as well as the 1964 State of the Union. He officially resigned February 29, 1964, and was the first member of the Kennedy Administration to do so.
Prior to his resignation, Sorensen stated his intent to write Kennedy's biography, calling it "the book that President Kennedy had intended to write with my help after his second term." He was not the only Kennedy aide to turn to writing; historian and Special Assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote his Pulitzer-winning memoir A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House during the same time span. Sorensen's biography Kennedy was published in 1965 and became an international bestseller.
Politics after Kennedy
Sorensen later joined the prominent U.S. law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, while still staying involved in politics. He was an important partner of Democratic campaigns and was a key adviser to Robert F. Kennedy in Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. Over the past four decades, Sorensen had a prominent career as an international lawyer, advising governments around the world, as well as major international corporations.
In 1970 Sorensen ran as the Democratic party's designee for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from New York, but was challenged in the primary election by Richard Ottinger, Paul O'Dwyer and Max McCarthy, and came in third. In 1977 Jimmy Carter nominated him as Director of Central Intelligence (CIA), but the nomination was withdrawn before a Senate vote. Sorensen’s help in explaining Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick incident was cited as one factor in Senate opposition to his nomination as CIA Director.[7]
Sorensen was the national co-chairman for Gary Hart for the presidential election of 1984 and made several appearances on his behalf.[8]
In addition to his successful career as a lawyer, Sorensen was also a frequent spokesman for liberal ideals and ideas, writing op-eds and delivering speeches on both domestic and international subjects. For several years in the 1960s, he was an editor at the Saturday Review.
He was affiliated with a number of institutions, including the Council on Foreign Relations, The Century Foundation, Princeton University, and the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Sorensen was a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice and an Advisory Board member of the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. He also was chairman of the advisory board to the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. Sorensen also attended meetings of the Judson Welliver Society, a bipartisan social club composed of former presidential speechwriters.
In 2007 a model Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech written by Sorensen was published in the Washington Monthly. The magazine had solicited him to write the speech that he would most want the 2008 Democratic nominee to give at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, without regard to the identity of the nominee.[9]
On March 9, 2007, he spoke at an event with then-Senator Barack Obama at New York City's Grand Hyatt Hotel and officially endorsed him for the presidential election in 2008.[10][11][12] Very active in his campaign, Sorensen spoke (early-on and) frequently about the similarities between both Senator Barack Obama's and Senator John F. Kennedy's presidential campaigns. He also provided some assistance with President Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address.[13]
Sorensen served on the Advisory Board of the National Security Network.
Coauthorship of Profiles in Courage (1956)
At the age of 27, Sorensen had an important role in researching and drafting Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Profiles in Courage, prompting some controversy over the book's authorship.
In December 1957, syndicatedcolumnistDrew Pearson, interviewed on TV by Mike Wallace, said, “Jack Kennedy is . . . the only man in history that I know who won a Pulitzer prize on a book which was ghostwritten for him.”[14] Kennedy demanded a retraction. After Kennedy provided handwritten notes and Sorensen signed an affidavit attesting to Kennedy's authorship, Pearson acceded.[15] Historian Herbert Parmet, in his book The Struggles of John F. Kennedy (1980), concluded that although Kennedy did oversee the production and provided for the direction and message of the book, Sorensen clearly provided much of the work that went into the end product.[16]
In May 2008, Sorensen clarified in his autobiography, Counselor, how he collaborated with Kennedy on the book: "While in Washington, I received from Florida almost daily instructions and requests by letter and telephone - books to send, memoranda to draft, sources to check, materials to assemble, and Dictaphone drafts or revisions of early chapters." (Sorensen, p. 146) Sorensen wrote that Kennedy "worked particularly hard and long on the first and last chapters, setting the tone and philosophy of the book" and that "I did a first draft of most chapters" and "helped choose the words of many of its sentences". JFK "publicly acknowledged in his introduction to the book my extensive role in its composition" (p. 147) Sorensen claimed that in May 1957, Kennedy "unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum to be spread over several years, that I regarded as more than fair" for his work on the book. Indeed, this supported a long-standing recognition of the collaborative effort that Kennedy and Sorensen had developed since 1953.[citation needed]
Personal life
He was married to Gillian Sorensen of the United Nations Foundation. He had had three sons by a previous marriage – Eric, Stephen, and Philip - and a daughter with Gillian, Juliet Sorensen.
On February 25, 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal for 2009 in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He was awarded the medal for: "Advancing our understanding of modern American politics. As a speechwriter and advisor to President Kennedy, he helped craft messages and policies, and later gave us a window into the people and events that made history."[17]
Sorensen died on October 31, 2010, following a stroke.[18]
Books by Ted Sorensen
Decision-making in the White House (1963)
Kennedy (1965)
The Kennedy Legacy (1969)
Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability After Watergate (1975)
A Different Kind of Presidency: A Proposal for Breaking the Political Deadlock (1984)
Let the Word Go Forth: The Speeches, Statements and Writings of John F. Kennedy, 1947-1963 (1988)
In the 2000 film Thirteen Days, although he was played by Tim Kelleher, it is widely believed that the lead role played by Kevin Costner was modeled after Sorensen himself: in an interview Robert McNamara claimed the duties performed by O'Donnell in the film are closer to the role Sorensen played during the actual crisis: "It was not Kenny O'Donnell who pulled us all together—it was Ted Sorensen."[19]
Clarke, Thurston. 2005. Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America. Macmillan, 304 pp. (Originally published 2004 by Henry Holt and Co., 272 pp.)
Marcus, Jacob Rader. 1981. The American Jewish Woman, 1654-1980. KTAV Publishing House. 231 pp
Kalim Sharafi was a Bangladeshi Rabindra Sangeet singer and cultural revolutionary. He gave his ideas in several publications regarding politics, culture, and Tagore. He is regarded as one of the best Rabindra sangeet singers in the subcontinent.[2]
Kalim Sharafi was born in Birbhun village of West Bengal on 8 May, 1924. His family was a part of a pir family who came from Sonargaon. His passion for music blossomed at an early age as he came across with renowned artists of pre-independent India. He said, "As a child I used to find Rabindranath’s compositions naturally melodic and heart touching and would grasp them easily".[2]
