Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist who combined gritty realism with playful erotica and depictions of the struggle for individual liberty in Latin America, while also writing essays that made him one of the most influential political commentators in the Spanish-speaking world, died on Sunday in Lima. He was 89. …
Jean Marsh, the striking British-born actress who was both the co-creator and a beloved Emmy-winning star of “Upstairs, Downstairs,” the seminal 1970s British drama series about class in Edwardian England, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 90. The cause was complications of dementia, the filmmaker Michael …
Brad Holland, an idiosyncratic artist who upended American illustration in the 1970s with his startling imagery for Playboy magazine and The New York Times’s opinion page, spawning a generation of imitators, died on March 27 in Manhattan. He was 81. His brother, Thomas Holland, said he died in a hospital …
Michael Hurley, a singer and songwriter whose music — an idiosyncratic kind of folk mixed with a variety of other styles — made him a revered elder to younger artists like Cat Power, Devendra Banhart and the band Yo La Tengo, died on April 1 in Portland, Ore. He was …
William Finn, a witty, cerebral and psychologically perceptive musical theater writer who won two Tony Awards for “Falsettos” and had an enduringly popular hit with “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” died on Monday in Bennington, Vt. He was 73. His longtime partner, Arthur Salvadore, said the cause of …
Marcia Marcus, a figurative and conceptual artist with a steely will and a bold contemporary style who found fame in the 1960s and then was largely overlooked until she was nearly 90, though she kept working, confidently, decade after decade, died on March 27 in Manhattan. She was 97. Her …
John Peck, a cultural omnivore known as The Mad Peck whose dryly humorous style as an underground cartoonist, artist, critic, disc jockey and record collector was accompanied by an ornate eccentricity, died on March 15 in Providence, R.I. He was 82. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was …
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. Katharine Dexter McCormick, who was born to a life of wealth, which she compounded through marriage, could have sat back and simply enjoyed the many advantages that …
Richard Bernstein, a former correspondent and critic for The New York Times whose deep knowledge of Asia and Europe illuminated reporting from Tiananmen Square to the Bastille, and who wrote things as he saw them in 10 books driven by unflinching intellectual curiosity, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was …
Val Kilmer, a homegrown Hollywood actor who tasted leading-man stardom as Jim Morrison and Batman, but whose protean gifts and elusive personality also made him a high-profile supporting player, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65. The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. Mr. Kilmer was …
