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    The Artists We Lost in 2020, in Their Words

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Artists We Lost in 2020, in Their WordsGabe Cohn, Peter Libbey and Dec. 22, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETIt’s always difficult to lose a favorite actor or a beloved musician. But in 2020, a year of crisis upon crisis, some of those losses were especially painful, brought on by a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone. The artists on this list could help us better understand the time we’re living through, or at least help us get through it with a smile or cathartic cry. Here is a tribute to them, in their own words.Chadwick BosemanCredit…Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times“When I dared to challenge the system that would relegate us to victims and stereotypes with no clear historical backgrounds, no hopes or talents, when I questioned that method of portrayal, a different path opened up for me, the path to my destiny.”— Chadwick Boseman, actor, born 1976 (Read the obituary.)Ann ReinkingCredit…Jack Mitchell/Getty Images“It’s crucial to know where the work stops and your life begins.”— Ann Reinking, dancer, born 1949 (Read the obituary.)Larry KramerCredit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I don’t consider myself an artist. I consider myself a very opinionated man who uses words as fighting tools.”— Larry Kramer, writer, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Luchita HurtadoCredit…Anna Watson/Camera Press, via Redux“When that first photograph was taken of Earth from space and you saw this little ball in blackness … I became aware of what I felt I was. I feel very much that a tree is a relative, a cousin. Everything in this world, I find, I’m related to.”— Luchita Hurtado, artist, born 1920 (Read the obituary.)Sean ConneryCredit…Bob Haswell/Express, via Getty Images“If you start thinking of your image, or what the mysterious ‘they’ out there are thinking of you, you’re in a trap. What’s important is that you’re doing the work that’s best for you.”— Sean Connery, actor, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Little RichardCredit…Eloy Alonso/Reuters“I’m not conceited — I’m convinced.”— Little Richard, singer, born 1932 (Read the obituary.)Alex TrebekCredit…Alamy“My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding, and I am nowhere near having achieved that. And it doesn’t bother me in the least. I will die without having come up with the answers to many things in life.”— Alex Trebek, TV host, born 1940 (Read the obituary.)Othella DallasCredit…Beda Schmid“Dancing and singing is all I always wanted. Doing what you want makes you happy — and old.”— Othella Dallas, dancer, born 1925 (Read the obituary.)Eddie Van HalenCredit…Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty Images“All I know is that rock ’n’ roll guitar, like blues guitar, should be melody, speed and taste, but more important, it should have emotion. I just want my guitar playing to make people feel something: happy, sad, even horny.”— Eddie Van Halen, guitarist, born 1955 (Read the obituary.)Ennio MorriconeCredit…Paul Bergen/EPA, via Shutterstock“In my opinion, the goal of music in a film is to convey what is not seen or heard in the dialogue. It’s something abstract, coming from afar.”— Ennio Morricone, composer, born 1928 (Read the obituary.)Diana RiggCredit…Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That’s the only way to go. If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.”— Diana Rigg, actress, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Helen ReddyCredit…Herb Ball/NBC Universal, via Getty Images“I would like to thank God because she makes everything possible.”— Helen Reddy, singer, born 1941 (Read the obituary.)Jerry StillerCredit…Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times“Laughter is the answer to all the pain I experienced as a kid. When I’m not doing it, it all gets eerie and weird. I am only left with the memories that inhabit me that can only be knocked out by hearing laughter.”— Jerry Stiller, comedian, born 1927 (Read the obituary.)Christiane Eda-PierreCredit…Keystone/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images“I have never had any support, I have not been encouraged by anyone, it is not in my character or the customs of my family. I made myself on my own, thanks to my work.”— Christiane Eda-Pierre, singer, born 1932 (Read the obituary.)Milton GlaserCredit…Robert Wright for The New York Times“I am totally a believer in the idea that style is a limitation of perception and understanding. And what I’ve tried in my life is to avoid style and find an essential reason for making things.”— Milton Glaser, designer, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)CristinaCredit…Ebet RobertsMy life is in a turmoilMy thighs are black and blueMy sheets are stained so is my brainWhat’s a girl to do?— Cristina, singer, born 1956 (Read the obituary.)Adam SchlesingerCredit…Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty Images“I’d rather write about a high school prom or something than write about a midlife crisis, you know?”— Adam Schlesinger, songwriter, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Anthony ChisholmCredit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m an actor. I can play a lizard, anything. I’ve worked in ‘nontraditional’ theater. I did ‘Of Mice and Men.’ Played Slim. The great Joe Fields did a Willy Loman. We as actors want to act.”— Anthony Chisholm, actor, born 1943 (Read the obituary.)Olivia de HavillandCredit…Julien Mignot for The New York Times“I would prefer to live forever in perfect health, but if I must at some time leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise longue, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me and having just discovered the answer to the last problem in a British cryptic crossword.”— Olivia de Havilland, actress, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Krzysztof PendereckiCredit…Rafal Michalowski/Agencja Gazeta, via Reuters“Listening to classical music is like reading philosophy books, not everybody has to do it. Music is not for everybody.”— Krzysztof Penderecki, composer, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)Helen LaFranceCredit…Bruce Shelton, via Associated Press“If I do something somebody likes, well, I’m satisfied because somebody liked what I did, but I don’t think it’s important.”— Helen LaFrance, artist, born 1919 (Read the obituary.)Kirk DouglasCredit…Associated Press“If I thought a man had never committed a sin in his life, I don’t think I’d want to talk with him. A man with flaws is more interesting.”— Kirk Douglas, actor, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Aileen Passloff, leftCredit…Nina Westervelt for The New York Times“I was strong and tireless and full of passion and loved dancing as deeply as one could ever love anything.”— Aileen Passloff, dancer, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Kenny RogersCredit…Wally Fong/Associated Press“I love my wife, I love my family, I love my life, and I love my music.”— Kenny Rogers, singer, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Peter BeardCredit…Shawn Ehlers/WireImage, via Getty Images“An artist who goes around proclaiming that the art he’s making is art is probably making a serious mistake. And that’s one mistake I try not to make.”— Peter Beard, artist, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Charley PrideCredit…Bettmann Archive, via Getty Images“What we don’t need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgment of what belongs and what doesn’t.”— Charley Pride, singer, born 1934 (Read the obituary.)Elizabeth WurtzelCredit…Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times“The way I am is that I put everything I have into whatever I’m doing or thinking about at the moment. So it’s not right when people say I’m self-absorbed. I think I’m just absorbed.”— Elizabeth Wurtzel, author, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Leon FleisherCredit…Steve J. Sherman“I was driven, if anything, even harder by all of my successes. There was always more to attain, and more to achieve, and more musical depths to plumb, and lurking behind it all, the terrifying risk of failure.”— Leon Fleisher, pianist, born 1928 (Read the obituary.)Zoe CaldwellCredit…Patrick A. Burns/The New York Times“I know the business of acting is sharing an experience, provoking an emotion. I don’t want to use the world love. It’s an abused word, hackneyed. But the truth is that I love to act in the theater.”— Zoe Caldwell, actress, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)Louis Johnson, leftCredit…Marbeth“I am a dancer who loves dance, any kind of dance. In choreographing, I don’t think of dance as ballet, modern or anything, just dance.”— Louis Johnson, dancer, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Terrence McNallyCredit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times“I like to surprise myself. I’ve always been attracted to projects where I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. If I ever evince bravery in my life, it tends to be at a keyboard.”— Terrence McNally, playwright, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Jean ErdmanCredit…Jack Mitchell/Getty Images“I found myself involved with the dance as a child in Hawaii. We’d have picnics on the sand and get up and do hulas. I didn’t even know what I was talking about at the time, but I wanted to create my own theater.”— Jean Erdman, dancer, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Bill WithersCredit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times“I’m not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don’t think I’ve done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia.”— Bill Withers, singer, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)ChristoCredit…Andrea Frazzetta for The New York Times“I am allergic to any art related to propaganda. And everything: commercial propaganda, political propaganda, religious propaganda — it is all about propaganda. And the greatness of art, like poetry or music, is that it is totally unnecessary.”— Christo, artist, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)John le CarréCredit…Charlotte Hadden for The New York Times“I’m horrified at the notion of autobiography because I’m already constructing the lies I’m going to tell.”— John le Carré, author, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Mirella FreniCredit…Karin Cooper/Washington National Opera“Life nails you to something real in the falsehood of the stage. I have always felt a connection between daily life and art. I’ve always known where the stage door was, to get in and get out. Some others get lost in the maze. My reality has been my key.”— Mirella Freni, singer, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Ming Cho LeeCredit…Robert Caplin for The New York Times“I’ve been criticized for doing very Brechtian design, but when I go to a play or an opera, I love getting involved rather than just looking at it. I prefer a total theatrical experience to an analytical experience.”— Ming Cho Lee, theater designer, born 1930 (Read the obituary.)Lynn SheltonCredit…Stuart Isett for The New York Times“You can pick up a camera. The technology is there. You can get your friends together and you can make a movie. You should do it. Now.”— Lynn Shelton, director, born 1965 (Read the obituary.)Nick Cordero, center.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The producer kept telling me: ‘Get tough. Get mean. Get angry.’ But I’m a nice guy. I’m Canadian.”— Nick Cordero, actor, born 1978 (Read the obituary.)Toots HibbertCredit…Michael Putland/Getty Images“You have got to be tough. Don’t just give up in life. Be strong, and believe in what you believe in.”— Toots Hibbert, singer, born 1942 (Read the obituary.)Regis PhilbinCredit…Karsten Moran for The New York Times“I want people to enjoy what I do, and understand what I’m doing is for their enjoyment. And that’s all I can ask for.”— Regis Philbin, TV host, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Mary Higgins ClarkCredit…Tony Cenicola/The New York Times“Let others decide whether or not I’m a good writer. I know I’m a good Irish storyteller.”— Mary Higgins Clark, author, born 1927 (Read the obituary.)Irrfan KhanCredit…Chad Batka for The New York Times“No one could have imagined I would be an actor, I was so shy. So thin. But the desire was so intense.”— Irrfan Khan, actor, born 1967 (Read the obituary.)Betty WrightCredit…Paul Bergen/Redferns, via Getty Images“As long as you keep yourself in love with people, you can transcend time.”— Betty Wright, singer, born 1953 (Read the obituary.)John Prine Credit…Kyle Dean Reinford for The New York TimesWhen I get to heavenI’m gonna take that wristwatch off my armWhat are you gonna do with timeAfter you’ve bought the farm?— John Prine, musician, born 1946 (Read the obituary.)AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOthella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95Ms. Dallas taught the Afro-Caribbean-influenced Dunham dance technique in Europe well into her 90s. She also had a career as a blues, jazz and R&B singer. An early member of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, she later had success as a singer.Credit…via Peter WydlerDec. 11, 2020Othella Dallas, who was one of the last surviving early members of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the nation’s first self-supporting Black modern dance troupe, and taught the Afro-Caribbean-influenced Dunham technique in Europe well into her 90s, died on Nov. 28 at a nursing home in Binningen, Switzerland. She was 95.Her son, Peter Wydler, said the cause was lung cancer.The sound of conga drums reverberated at Ms. Dallas’s studio in Basel, Switzerland, for years as she gyrated to their rhythm. Her students watched reverently, eager to learn from a woman who had learned from Dunham, the matriarch of Black dance, who died in 2006.“I had three mothers in my life,” Ms. Dallas said in a 2016 documentary film about her, “What Is Luck?” “My mother, my grandmother and my godmother. And then I had Katherine Dunham. My professor.”Ms. Dallas’s dance school, which she opened in 1975, is considered the only school in Europe that teaches pure Dunham technique, a polyrhythmic style rooted in early Black dance that Dunham developed through her ethnographic research in the Caribbean in the 1930s. Alvin Ailey studied with Dunham in the 1940s, and the technique’s legacy lives on institutionally at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York.Ms. Dallas teaching a class at her dance school in Basel, Switzerland, last year. She continued to teach well into her 90s.Credit…Renata SagoBut as the style’s prominence diminished, Ms. Dallas’s devotion to teaching it rendered her a powerful living link to dance history.Glory Van Scott, a former principal Dunham dancer who is a master teacher of the technique, said Ms. Dallas was among the last of her era.“Very few are left from her generation,” Dr. Van Scott said. “But as long as there’s someone out there doing Dunham, we’re still here.”“You feel it like a religion,” she added. “It’s in our bloodline. You live with it when you teach it. You respect it. And then you give it to someone else, so they may have the honor of teaching it and seeing the genius of Dunham.”Ms. Dallas left the Katherine Dunham Dance Company in 1949, and although she was associated with her illustrious mentor her whole life, she hardly lived in her shadow.She seized her own spotlight in the 1950s as a blues and R&B singer, sharing stages with Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole. She appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem with Sammy Davis Jr. And she had the distinction of singing in a stage musical orchestrated by a young Quincy Jones, “Free and Easy,” which flopped so badly that it left him and his band broke and stranded in Europe.Ms. Dallas settled in Switzerland in the 1960s, but she also kept performing, gradually becoming an esteemed elder stateswoman of the blues. In 2005, she played at the founding concert of the Festival da Jazz in St. Moritz, and she went on to perform there annually. Last year she received a Swiss Jazz Award.Ms. Dallas at the Festival da Jazz in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 2010. She performed at the festival annually starting in 2005.Credit…Giancarlo Cattaneo/fotoSwiss.comAfter decades running her school in Basel, she became known as an eccentric local personality. She wore elaborate jewelry and colorful headwraps, and she rode the bus to class, her diminutive figure lugging a roller bag filled with leotards and dance equipment.Ms. Dallas was born just before the Great Depression in Memphis and grew up waiting in breadlines with her mother. She lived in a creaky old house on the outskirts of town. And she was filled with verve from the start.“I was dancing since I came out of my mother’s womb,” she said in the documentary. “I said, ‘Where are the people? Where’s the microphone? Where’s the musicians? I’m ready to dance.’”In the 1930s, while Ms. Dallas was studying ballet in St. Louis, Dunham visited the school one day, and Ms. Dallas caught her attention.“They said, ‘Go dance for Ms. Dunham,’” Ms. Dallas recalled. “And Ms. Dunham, she had her eye on me. I’ll never forget that.”When she was 19, Ms. Dallas headed to New York at Dunham’s invitation to study at her school near Times Square. She was initiated into Dunham’s militaristic training regimen, required to scrub floors, wash clothes and do her teacher’s hair.“My attitude,” Ms. Dallas told The New York Times last year, was “to bleed her, to get everything that I ever wanted to learn in my life about dance.”Ms. Dallas, right, with Katherine Dunham in 1949. “I had three mothers in my life,” Ms. Dallas once said. “My mother, my grandmother and my godmother. And then I had Katherine Dunham. My professor.”Credit…via Peter WydlerMs. Dallas performed on Broadway in 1946 in “Bal Nègre,” a revue staged and choreographed by Dunham, and toured with the company throughout Europe. In Paris, she met a Swiss engineer named Peter Wydler. When Dunham discovered that Ms. Dallas intended to get married, she was initially furious, but she served as Ms. Dallas’s witness and popped the Champagne at the wedding in 1949. Eartha Kitt sang “C’est Si Bon.”Ms. Dallas left the company later that year to stay with her husband in Switzerland. She taught the Dunham technique in Zurich in the 1950s, but soon left to pursue a music career back in America. In 1975, finally settled in Europe, she opened her dance school in Basel.“Yes, I’ve had luck,” she said in the documentary, reflecting on her improbable life. “I’ve been lucky to have so much. That means, what is luck?”Othella Dallas was born Othella Talmadge Strozier on Sept. 26, 1925, in Memphis. Her father, Frank, was a pharmacist. Her mother, Thelma Lee, was a seamstress who also sang in vaudeville. A grandmother ran a music school. Othella attended high school in St. Louis and aspired to become a doctor.As a girl, she suffered from rickets; doctors suggested resetting her legs. Instead, as she told it, her grandmother took her to a voodoo priest, who prescribed that her legs get massaged in greasy dishwater while he recited an incantation.After enough dips in the kitchen sink, he said she was cured.“Let her dance,” he proclaimed.“Let her dance where?” her mother asked. “Those old dirty nightclubs?”“I don’t care where she dances,” he said. “But let her dance.”Before long, Dunham discovered Ms. Dallas and invited her to New York. As Ms. Dallas studied with her, Dunham’s ambitions for her dance company grew. She pursued Broadway and eyed an international tour.“She said, ‘I’m going to put my people on Broadway,’” Ms. Dallas recalled. “And as the first Black company on Broadway, we had to work like a dog.”Of those days, Dunham once wrote: “We weren’t pushing ‘Black Is Beautiful.’ We just showed it.”Ms. Dallas pursued her singing career in the 1950s, changing her surname from Strozier because her manager thought “Dallas” looked slicker on a marquee.In 1960, after making annual visits to her family in Europe for several years, she joined her husband and son in Switzerland, and they settled in Binningen, a town just outside Basel. She kept a scrapbook in her bedroom filled with photographs and press clips from her day in the spotlight.When Dunham died in 2006, Ms. Dallas recommitted to teaching her mentor’s technique. She traveled across Europe hosting workshops at dance schools and events.“She was aware she was pretty much the only one from her time still being able to teach,” her son said. “It was important for her to keep it pure.”Ms. Dallas in Zurich in 2019. Credit…Beda SchmidIn addition to her son, Ms. Dallas is survived by two grandchildren and a half brother, Frank Strozier, a jazz saxophonist. Her husband died in 1982.Ms. Dallas learned she had lung cancer in 2018. Her final performance was a two-hour set at the Atlantis club in Basel this February. She continued to teach at her school three days a week until the lockdown began in March. She was moved to a nursing home over the summer.During her last weeks at the school, she stuck to a favorite routine. When the studio emptied out after class, she liked to put on a Ray Charles CD. As the music played, she danced in front of the mirror by herself.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More