Deaths (Obituaries)

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      in Movies

      Carlos Diegues, Filmmaker Who Celebrated Brazil’s Diversity, Dies at 84

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      Seeking to shed the gauzy influence of Hollywood and focus on Brazil’s ethnic richness and troubled history, he helped forge a new path for his country’s cinema.Carlos Diegues, a film director who celebrated Brazil’s ethnic richness and its social turbulence, helping to forge a new path for cinema in his country, died on Feb. 14 in Rio de Janeiro. He was 84.His death, in a hospital, was announced by the Brazilian Academy of Letters, of which he was a member. The academy said the cause was complications of surgery. The Rio newspaper O Globo, for which Mr. Diegues wrote a column, reported that he had suffered “cardiocirculatory complications” before the surgery.Mr. Diegues, who was known as Cacá, was a founder of Cinema Novo, the modern school of Brazilian cinema that combined Italian Neo-Realism, documentary style and uniquely Latin American fantasy. He focused on hitherto marginal groups — Afro-Brazilians, the poor, disoriented provincials in an urbanizing Brazil — and was the first Brazilian director to employ Black actors as protagonists, in “Ganga Zumba,” (1963), a narrative of enslavement and revolt that was an early cinematic foray into Brazil’s history of racial violence.The often lyrical results, expressed over the course of 60 years in dozens of features and documentaries, charmed audiences in his own country and abroad, though critics sometimes reproached him for loose screenplays and rough-edged camera work.José Wilker, left, and Principe Nabor in “Bye Bye Brazil” (1979). Mr. Diegues’s international breakthrough, it was nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes.Ademir Silva/LC Barreto Productions, via New Yorker FilmsMr. Diegues’s international breakthrough film, “Bye Bye Brazil” (1979), nominated for a Palme d’Or at Cannes, is considered the apotheosis of his dramatic visual style and of his preoccupation with those on the margins of Brazilian society. It follows a feckless group of rascally street performers through the outback, documenting a vanishing Brazil where citizens in remote towns are beguiled by fake falling snowflakes — actually shredded coconut — and hypnotized, literally, by a rare communal television set.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Voletta Wallace, the Notorious B.I.G.’s Mother, Dies at 78

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      She played the rapper music as a child, stood by his side during his meteoric career and navigated the legal and artistic questions that arose after his killing.Voletta Wallace, the mother of the Brooklyn rapper the Notorious B.I.G., whose stewardship of her son’s career and legacy after he was killed in 1997 helped cement him as a hip-hop legend, died on Friday. She was 78.Ms. Wallace died in hospice care at her residence in Stroudsburg, Pa., according to a news release from the Monroe County coroner, Thomas Yanac. A cause was not specified.A middle-class immigrant and single mother from Jamaica, Ms. Wallace was forced into the hip-hop spotlight after the Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace and also known as Biggie Smalls, was killed at 24 in a Los Angeles drive-by shooting.Biggie’s death came just six months after the Las Vegas slaying of the rapper Tupac Shakur, a onetime friend turned bitter rival, with the killings abruptly ending a formative and fruitful moment in mainstream gangster rap amid a tangled East Coast-West Coast beef that went far beyond music.For decades, both cases remained unsolved, fueling an ongoing ecosystem of true-crime books, documentaries, articles and more that have attempted to explain the possible links between the two killings, including the involvement of national gangs and crooked cops. (In 2023, prosecutors in Las Vegas charged Duane Keith Davis, a former gang leader known as Keffe D, with murder in the Shakur case; he is set to stand trial later this year.)Ms. Wallace, a preschool teacher, took on the mantle of her son’s career almost immediately. Biggie’s second album, “Life After Death,” came out two weeks after he died; six months later, Ms. Wallace accepted the MTV Video Music Award for best rap video (“Hypnotize”), telling the New York crowd, “I know if my son was here tonight, the first thing he would’ve done is say big up to Brooklyn.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jerry Butler, Singer Known as the Iceman, Dies at 85

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      Jerry Butler, the graceful singer and songwriter who served as the first leader of the Impressions before launching a long, hit-heavy solo career, died on Thursday at his home in Chicago. He was 85.His death was confirmed by his assistant, who said that Mr. Butler had Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Butler’s resounding baritone voice, though gritty in timbre, was animated by gentility and charm; he approached a lyric with an almost courtly level of sensitivity. His poise explained, in part, how he came to be known as the Iceman.Mr. Butler scored his first hit in 1958 with “For Your Precious Love,” a song he recorded with the Impressions and wrote with two other members of the group. It reached No. 11 on Billboard’s pop chart. Its lyrics stressed perseverance and loyalty, themes Mr. Butler would revisit throughout his career.Immediately after leaving the group in 1960, he reached the Billboard Top 10 with “He Will Break Your Heart,” which he wrote with his bandmate Curtis Mayfield and Calvin Carter. The song proved durable: A reworked version by Tony Orlando and Dawn, “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),” would become a No. 1 hit more than a decade later.Mr. Butler’s version of “Moon River,” the Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer song from the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” climbed to No. 11 on the pop chart in 1961. The next year, his interpretation of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Make It Easy on Yourself” reached No. 20.Two years later, he reached the Top 10 again with “Let It Be Me,” a duet with Betty Everett. It performed even better than the Everly Brothers’ version, widely considered a classic: The Butler-Everett version reached No. 5, two points higher than the Everlys had reached in 1960.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Olga James, a Star of ‘Carmen Jones’ and ‘Mr. Wonderful,’ Dies at 95

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      An operatic soprano, she had high-profile roles on film and stage in the 1950s. But after that, she mostly spent her career away from the limelight.Olga James, an actress and operatic soprano whose career highlights occurred nearly back to back in the mid-1950s — as Harry Belafonte’s jilted girlfriend in the all-Black musical film “Carmen Jones” and as Sammy Davis Jr.’s love interest in the Broadway show “Mr. Wonderful” — died on Jan. 25 in Los Angeles. She was 95.Her death, in an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her niece Janet Adderley.Ms. James had performed with an opera company in France and in a popular musical revue in Atlantic City, N.J., when her manager, Abe Saperstein — the basketball impresario behind the Harlem Globetrotters — landed her an audition in 1954 for “Carmen Jones,” the movie version of Oscar Hammerstein II’s hit 1943 Broadway update of Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” The opera is set in 1820s Spain; the setting of the film, like that of the Broadway musical, is the American South during World War II.Auditioning for the role of Cindy Lou, whose boyfriend, Joe (played by Mr. Belafonte), a soldier headed for flight school, is seduced by Carmen (Dorothy Dandridge), a worker in a parachute factory, Ms. James sang an aria at the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon Theater) for Otto Preminger, the film’s imperious director.“It wasn’t a stretch for me,” she was quoted as saying in “Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King” (2007), by Foster Hirsch. “I was that character, a country-looking girl. I was just a little ingénue.”Ms. James with Harry Belafonte in a publicity photo for “Carmen Jones.” She did her own singing; his singing voice and Dorothy Dandridge’s were dubbed because they could not sing in an operatic range.20th Century Fox, via Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesShe won the role. “Carmen Jones” would be her first movie — and her last.Of the film’s three lead performers, only Ms. James did her own singing; Mr. Belafonte’s and Ms. Dandridge’s songs were dubbed because they could not sing in an operatic range.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Souleymane Cissé, Celebrated Malian Filmmaker, Dies at 84

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      He won multiple awards during his 50-year career, including the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and spent his life championing African cinema.Souleymane Cissé, an award-winning writer and director who became the first Black African filmmaker to win the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, died on Wednesday in Bamako, Mali. He was 84.His death was confirmed by François Margolin, a French film producer and a close friend of Mr. Cissé’s.Mr. Cissé had just appeared at a news conference on Wednesday morning to present two prizes ahead of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, known as Fespaco, where he had been set to head the jury.After the news conference — where he was “talking and joking” — Mr. Cissé went to take a nap and didn’t wake up, Mr. Margolin said.Mr. Cissé was catapulted to worldwide fame with the release in 1987 of “Yeelen” (“Light” in his native Bambara). The film won the jury prize at Cannes and was nominated as the best foreign film in the 1989 Spirit Awards. The director Martin Scorsese called the film “one of the great revelatory experiences of my moviegoing life.”Mr. Cissé had been energetic until the end of his life, Mr. Margolin said, working and traveling around the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Paquita la del Barrio, Whose Songs Empowered Women, Dies at 77

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      In unflinching ballads that spoke of the pain men can cause women, the Mexican singer often relied on what she learned in her own relationships.Paquita la del Barrio, the prolific Mexican vocalist and songwriter known for her powerful feminist ballads, died on Monday at her home in Veracruz. She was 77.Paquita’s social media accounts made the announcement on Monday, but did not list a cause of death.“With deep pain and sadness we confirm the sensitive passing of our beloved ‘Paquita la del Barrio,’” the statement said in Spanish. “She was a unique and unrepeatable artist who will leave an indelible mark in the hearts of all of us who knew her and enjoyed her music.”Paquita broke through in the Mexican ranchera genre, a field typically dominated by men, demonstrated through intense songs centering on love, revenge and nationalism. Songs like “Rata de dos Patas,” “Me Saludas a la Tuya” and “Tres Veces Te Engane” denounced male macho culture and became anthems.A 1999 article in The New York Times highlighted Paquita’s place in Mexico City, where she had begun her career as a local performer, describing her as “something of a patron saint” of a place where her songs resonated.Paquita’s passing caused an outpouring of grief among celebrities and fans on social media.Alejandro Sanz, a singer and composer, wrote in Spanish that her music was “capable of capturing a feeling and turning it into a song” and that she is a “part of the eternal culture.”Thalia, a popular singer and actress, shared a scene of the pair starring on “Maria Mercedes,” a soap opera that aired on the Mexican broadcaster Televisa in 1992. Initially, Thalia expressed nervousness about sharing a stage with Paquita.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Edith Mathis, Radiant Swiss Soprano, Is Dead at 86

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      Known for her interpretations of Bach, Mozart and Weber, she was praised for her clear, bright voice and her perfect intonation even on the highest notes.Edith Mathis, a light-voiced Swiss soprano who sparkled in Bach, Mozart and Weber and was the agile-voiced favorite of several of the conducting giants who dominated mid-20th-century concert halls, died on Sunday at her home in Salzburg, Austria. She was 86.Her death was announced by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where she sang throughout the 1970s and ’80s.But she was also a star in all the world’s other major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, illuminating roles like Cherubino and Susanna in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” Ännchen in Weber’s “Der Freischütz” and Marzelline in Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” which she sang five times at the Met in 1971 under Karl Böhm. She was a favorite of his, as she was of his rival for conducting pre-eminence in the last century, Herbert von Karajan.The dozens of opera, oratorio, cantata and song recordings Ms. Mathis left behind illustrate why: a clear, bright voice, perfect intonation even on the highest notes, an unaffected manner and absolute service to the text — “the voice so reliably radiant and clear, the musicianship so reliably impeccable,” the British critic Hugo Shirley wrote in Gramophone magazine in 2018, reviewing a CD collection released by Deutsche Grammophon in observance of her 80th birthday. She was, the dramaturg Malte Krasting wrote in a tribute for the Bavarian State Opera, “the epitome of an ideal Mozart singer.”She was also ideal in the German lieder repertoire — Schubert, Schumann and Hugo Wolf — many of whose songs she recorded with all-star partners like Christoph Eschenbach and Graham Johnson.When, for instance, she sang the Schubert song “Schlaflied” in a 1994 recording with Mr. Johnson, she gave a slight, barely perceptible push to the German word “jedem” (“all” or “every”), in the line “And is healed of all pain.” The extra measure of reassurance for the poem’s subject, a young boy, adds a dramatic point to the whole song.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Ken Wydro, Who Helped Create an Off Broadway Phenomenon, Dies at 81

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      He and his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured all they had into “Mama, I Want to Sing,” a long-shot musical that became an enduring staple of Black theater.Ken Wydro, a playwright, director and producer who with his wife, Vy Higginsen, poured their life savings into the Off Broadway gospel musical “Mama, I Want to Sing,” an enduring work of Black theater that ran for more than 2,800 performances, died on Jan. 21 at his home in Harlem. He was 81.The cause was heart failure, his daughter, Ahmaya Knoelle Higginson, said.“Mama, I Want to Sing” tells the tale of a minister’s daughter who rises to international fame as a soul singer. The show is loosely based on the life of Ms. Higginsen’s older sister, Doris Troy, who honed her singing chops at her father’s Pentecostal church in Harlem and later tasted the big time by co-writing and recording “Just One Look,” which was a Top 10 single for her in 1963 and later became a hit for both the Hollies and Linda Ronstadt.Ms. Troy also made her mark as a backup singer on rock anthems like the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and in 1970 she released a solo album on the Beatles’ label, Apple Records, with a supporting cast that included George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Billy Preston.“Mama, I Want to Sing” is “a Black Cinderella story,” Mr. Wydro said in a 2013 interview with Call Me Adam, an entertainment website. “Coming from behind, finding oneself through loss, pain and family love.”A 1988 performance of “Mama, I Want to Sing” at the Heckscher Theater in East Harlem. Nearly every major theatrical producer in New York rejected the show before it found a home there.Martha SwopeAlthough “Mama” ultimately had a marathon run, success was anything but guaranteed. Nearly every major theatrical producer in New York rejected the show, fearing that a gospel-heavy musical would attract a limited audience.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More