Here, again, is our monthly look at those who have departed from this earth.
Faruq Z. Bey (born Jesse Davis, Feb. 4, 1942 – June 1, 2012) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He was from Detroit, Mich. Bey was known for his work with Griot Galaxy, which played intense free jazz with distinct compositions characterized by odd meters and polyrhythms, often by Bey.
Richard Dawson (born Colin Lionel Emm, Nov. 20, 1932 – June 2, 2012) was the original host of Family Feud from 1976 until 1985. He was also on Hogan’s Heroes and Match Game.
Lucky Diamond (c. 1997 – June 5, 2012) was a female Maltese owned by Wendy Diamond, media personality and publisher of Animal Fair Magazine. Lucky is the current Guinness World Record holder for dog most photographed with celebrities.
Ray Douglas Bradbury (Aug. 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction writer. Bradbury was best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) — which he argued was not about book censorship as much as it was about the loss of the culture suffered through the advent of television.
John T. Cunningham ( June 26, 1915 – June 7, 2012) was an American journalist, writer and historian who published numerous works related to the history of his native state, New Jersey. Long known as “New Jersey’s popular historian,” Cunningham’s book This is New Jersey, originally published in 1953, has never gone out of print.
Frank Randolph Cady (Sept. 8, 1915 – June 8, 2012) was an American actor best known for his recurring and popular role as storekeeper Sam Drucker in three American television series during the 1960s — Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Yvette Wilson (March 6, 1964 – June 14, 2012) was an American comedian and actress. She was best known for her role as Andell Wilkerson on the UPN sitcom Moesha and its spinoff The Parkers. She has appeared in many comedy films such as House Party 2, House Party 3, Friday and on Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam. She died from cervical cancer at age 48.
Richard Hugh Lynch ( June 19, 1940 – June 19, 2012) was an American actor best known for portraying villains in films and television. He often appeared in science fiction productions, including Battlestar Galactica (as Wolfe) and its sequel series Galactica 1980 (as Commander Xaviar). He also appeared in such shows as Starsky and Hutch, T. J. Hooker, The A-Team, Charmed and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
LeRoy Neiman ( June 8, 1921 – June 20, 2012) was an American artist known for his brilliantly colored, expressionist paintings and screen prints of athletes, musicians and sporting events.
Anna Jacobson Schwartz (November 11, 1915 – June 21, 2012) was an American economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City, and according to Paul Krugman “one of the world’s greatest monetary scholars”. She was best known for her collaboration with Milton Friedman on A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 which laid a large portion of the blame for the Great Depression at the door of the Federal Reserve.
Gerhard “Gad” Beck ( June 30, 1923 – June 24, 2012) was a retired educator, author, activist and survivor of the Holocaust. Beck was featured, along with a few other gay Holocaust survivors, in the HBO documentary film Paragraph 175, in which he remembers his “great, great love” lost to the Nazis. Beck also published his autobiography, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin.
These obits were compiled from information found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_ in_2012.
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