Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics History Roundtable The Passing Parade: Obituaries: 2017

Tom Hawkins, who played six seasons for the Lakers, worked as a broadcaster in L.A. and later served as a Dodgers executive, passed away at his home in Malibu on Wednesday. He was 80.

A 6-foot-5 forward, Hawkins starred at Chicago’s Parker (now Robeson) High School before playing at Notre Dame, where he became the first African-American student-athlete to earn All-America honors for the Fighting Irish.

Hawkins was the first Irish player to average in double figures for scoring and rebounding during each of his three seasons (freshmen were ineligible during his collegiate career). His 1,318 career rebounds remains the oldest standing program record.

Hawkins graduated with a sociology degree and was selected by the then-Minneapolis Lakers with the third pick in the first round of the 1959 NBA draft. “The Hawk” enjoyed a productive 10-year career in the league, and played one season in Minnesota, before moving with the team to Los Angeles.

Dick Gregory, the pioneering black satirist who transformed cool humor into a barbed force for civil rights in the 1960s, then veered from his craft for a life devoted to protest and fasting in the name of assorted social causes, health regimens and conspiracy theories, died Saturday in Washington. He was 84.

Mr. Gregory’s son, Christian Gregory, who announced his death on social media, said more details would be released in the coming days. Mr. Gregory had been admitted to a hospital on Aug. 12, his son said in an earlier Facebook post.

Brian Aldiss, the “grand old man” of science fiction whose writing has shaped the genre since he was first published in the 1950s, has died at the age of 92.

Aldiss’s agent, Curtis Brown, and his son, Tim Aldiss, have announced that the author, artist, poet and memoirist died at home in Oxford in the early hours of 19 August. “Brian had celebrated his birthday with close friends and family and spoken to many close to him,” wrote Tim on Twitter as he announced the death of “our beloved father and grandfather”.

Aldiss was the author of science fiction classics including Non-Stop, Hothouse and Greybeard, as well as the Helliconia trilogy, which his agent said bridged “the gap between classic science fiction and contemporary literature”. His numerous short stories include Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, which was adapted into the Steven Spielberg film AI ...

Shelley Berman, whose brittle persona and anxiety-ridden observations helped redefine stand-up comedy in the late 1950s and early ’60s, died early Friday morning at his home in Bell Canyon, Calif. He was 92.

His publicist, Glenn Schwartz, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr. Berman, one of the first comedians to have as much success on records as in person or on television, was in the vanguard of a movement that transformed the comedy monologue from a rapid-fire string of gags to something more subtle, more thoughtful and more personal.

The comedians of the preceding generation, Gerald Nachman wrote in “Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s” (2003), were “one-liner salesmen” for whom “a joke was a cheap and reusable commodity, easily bought and sold, not a worldview or a political stance.” Comedians like Mr. Berman, Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce had a different approach.

In 1959, Time magazine referred to this new breed as “sick” comics, and the term (which Mr. Berman hated) caught on. But they had little in common with one another besides a determination to remake stand-up comedy in their own image. Mr. Sahl was a wry political commentator; Mr. Bruce was a profane social satirist; Mr. Berman was a beleaguered observer of life’s frustrations and embarrassments.

Richard Anderson, a character actor known for playing sturdy authority figures in films and on television, most notably the government agent who doled out perilous missions on two popular series, “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman,” died on Thursday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 91.

Jonathan Taylor, a spokesman for the family, confirmed the death.

With the polished good looks of a telegenic politician and standing an imposing 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Anderson seemed made to order for the authority-figure roles — a police official, a military officer, a senator and more — that casting directors were so often eager to fill.

United Press International once described him as “always a chief, never an Indian.”

His acting career took off with two-dozen films for MGM in the early 1950s. He appeared with Cary Grant in the romantic comedy “Dream Wife” (1953), Leslie Nielsen in the cult science-fiction movie “Forbidden Planet” (1956) and Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick’s antiwar World War I film, “Paths of Glory” (1957).