In 2023, the world bid farewell to several of its most cherished celebrities, marking a year of significant loss in various realms of popular culture. This year, we witnessed the departure of influential figures from entertainment, music, film, and sports, each leaving a unique legacy. These stars made a significant impact and will always be remembered.
Suzanne Somers
The actress and fitness expert passed away on the eve of her 77th birthday following more than 23 years of fighting an aggressive type of breast cancer. Her breakthrough Hollywood performance came from saying three lines, “I love you,” in George Lucas’ 1973 comedy American Graffiti. She was most recognized for playing one of Three’s Company‘s two main female characters. Before switching careers and entering the personal fitness industry with the ThighMaster, she starred in eight seasons of the sitcom Step By Step in the 1990s. She and her spouse made $300 million from their new venture.
Michael Gambon
The Irish actor debuted professionally in a 1962 performance of Othello by William Shakespeare, and his career lasted over six decades. His performance in Skylight garnered him a nomination for a Tony Award in 1997. He was well-known for his work on British television, where he was nominated for four BAFTA Awards for his roles in Perfect Strangers, Wives and Daughters, Longitude, and The Singing Detective. His portrayal of Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series, which ran from 2004 to 2011, helped him become famous around the world. On September 27, at the age of 82, he passed away from pneumonia.
Jimmy Buffett
At the age of 76, Jimmy Buffett, a musician well-known for his tropical rock sound, passed away on September 1 from a rare form of skin cancer. Buffett gained global recognition for his famous song “Margaritaville,” which pays tribute to cocktails and island leisure. Buffett leveraged the song’s popularity to build a billion-dollar fortune. Buffett transformed Margaritaville into an enterprise, initially initiating retail outlets and product lines and establishing a restaurant chain and resorts that drew inspiration from his most famous song. Buffett’s net worth was assessed at $1 billion at the time of his death.
Clarence Avant
Avant’s impact extended from the music industry, where he founded labels and handled performers, to sports, where he created a television special for Muhammad Ali and assisted players like Hank Aaron in finding sponsorships. Variety stated that Avant was an unofficial and occasionally official advisor to Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama in the political sphere. Despite his varied interests, he was most recognized for his work as a mentor in the entertainment sector. The 92-year-old “godfather of Black entertainment” passed away at his Los Angeles home.
Mark Margolis
Margolis passed suddenly on August 3 at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City at 83. He was most known for playing Mexican cartel lord Hector Salamanca in director Vince Gilligan’s critically acclaimed television series Breaking Bad, for which he earned a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. With roles in the Al Pacino thriller Scarface and the mind-bending Requiem for a Dream starring Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly, Margolis has many credits. He also played the same role in the Bob Odenkirk-led prequel Better Call Saul.
Sinead O’Connor
The Irish vocalist, renowned for performing Prince’s song “Nothing Compares 2 U” and her vocal political opinions, passed away at 56. She released ten studio albums between 1987 and 2014. She gained notoriety for her divisive choice to destroy a photo of Pope John Paul II when performing Bob Marley’s “War” on Saturday Night Live in 1992 as a protest against abuse in the Catholic Church. She was also forthright about her battles with mental illness, which included being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and having to postpone her 2012 tour due to a breakdown.
Tony Bennett
The renowned jazz vocalist passed away in New York City on July 21. He was well-known for his lengthy career and performances well into his 90s. With a career spanning over 70 years and over 60 recordings, starting with “Because of You” in 1951, Bennett was praised for his warm and endearing manner and renditions of the Great American Songbook. Following a period of hardship, which began in the 1960s when rock & roll music dominated the charts and resulted in his break from Columbia Records in 1971, Bennett experienced a comeback in the 1980s when his son assumed responsibility for overseeing his career.
Cormac McCarthy
Great American novelist Cormac McCarthy, whose works frequently depict a dark, dystopian America in the West, passed away on June 13 at 89. A Providence, Rhode Island native, he is renowned for his books The Road, No Country for Old Men, and All the Pretty Horses. His twelve books have received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Road 2007. In 2009, the film No Country for Old Men, adapted from his book, took home the Oscars for best picture, director, supporting actor, and screenplay. Here, he’s pictured on the right with actor Tommy Lee Jones on the left.
Tina Turner
The Rock’ n’ Roll singer died on May 24 at 83. Turner became well-known as half of the musical duo Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which she formed with her ex-husband and is famed for songs like Proud Mary. Turner carried on with a prosperous solo career, bringing us classics like “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” and “Better Be Good To Me.” What’s Love Got To Do With It, a 1993 biographical drama film starring Angela Bassett as the singer, was inspired by Turner’s life and career.
Jim Brown
Spanning nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965, Brown led the league in running with 12,312 yards and an average of 5.2 yards per carry. In his first year of eligibility, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. Before quitting the team to pursue acting in 1965, he guided them to an NFL Championship win in 1964. Renowned for his advocacy for civil rights, he established the “Amer-I-Can” foundation to curb gang violence in inner cities and provide more excellent economic opportunities for young Black individuals. On May 18, he passed away at the age of 87.
Jerry Springer
Springer died in Evanston, Illinois, on April 27, at 79. He had a brief but contentious career in politics, being elected to the Cincinnati City Council in 1971 and leaving office three years later after it was revealed that he had been paying escorts. After gaining reelection to the council the following year, he entered politics again. He held the office of mayor for a year in 1977. Afterward, he shifted to radio and television. From 1991 until 2018, he hosted his daytime talk show, which was recognized for having ushered in an unpolished, uncivilized version of reality television.
Lance Reddick
At 60, Reddick, an actor best known for his roles in the John Wick film series and The Wire, passed away on March 17. Before securing his primary role as Baltimore police officer Cedric Daniels on HBO’s The Wire, he had brief but memorable parts on television, including Law & Order and The West Wing. His most recent film role was in John Wick: Chapter 4, bringing in over $400 million globally at the box office. According to reports, he passed away from heart illness. However, his family and lawyer have refuted this information, arguing that it is incompatible with his physically active lifestyle.
Raquel Welch
Welch passed away on February 15 at the age of 82. She became well-known in the 1960s as an actress. Her doe-skin bikini that adorned best-selling posters helped her become renowned for her appearance as a cavewoman in the 1966 box office hit One Million Years B.C. Welch was ranked as the third-sexiest star of the 20th century in 1998, behind Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Welch is also well-known for successfully suing a significant Hollywood studio for age discrimination.
Frederic Forrest
Veteran character actor Frederic Forrest, who won an Oscar for his performance in the 1979 musical drama The Rose and was best recognized for portraying an irascible cook in Apocalypse Now, passed away on June 24 at 86. Forrest, raised in Waxahachie, Texas, relocated to New York to seek acting training and succeeded there before moving to Los Angeles to work in film.
Coco Lee
The 48-year-old Hong Kong singer-songwriter Coco Lee, who sang the role of Mulan in the Mandarin adaptation of the beloved Disney film and appeared on the soundtracks for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Runaway Bride, took her own life on July 5. Lee started her singing career in the 1990s and created over 15 studio albums over 30 years. She was born in Hong Kong and reared in the United States. The singer is remembered for her singles “Di Da Di Before I Fall in Love” and “A Love Before Time.” She performed in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.
Jerome Coppersmith
Jerome Coppersmith, a 97-year-old screenwriter, playwright, and screenwriting professor, passed away on July 21. He was most recognized for his work on Hawaii Five-O. Since starting her career in television in 1947, Coppersmith has written over 100 screenplays, over 30 of which were for the iconic police drama. In 1965, he was nominated for a Tony Award in the Best Book of a Musical category for the Sherlock Holmes musical Baker Street, which Harold Prince directed. He was also an officer of the Writers Guild of America.
Al Jaffee
Al Jaffee, a record-breaking and award-winning Mad magazine cartoonist, passed away on April 10 due to multiple organ failure. He was 102 years old. Jaffee held the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a comic book artist, having worked for Mad for 65 years—by far the longest contributor to the magazine—from 1942 to 2020. Famously, Jaffee invented the Mad Fold-In and “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.” At the age of 99, he retired from cartooning in 2020.
Harry Belafonte
Renowned singer, actor, and civil rights leader Belafonte, on April 25, at 96, died of congestive heart failure. Belafonte marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Apart from his charitable endeavors, which encompassed serving as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and winning him an honorary Oscar in 2014, the performer dropped the successful 1956 song Banana Boat (Day-O) and collected Grammy, Tony, and Emmy honors throughout his multi-decade career.
Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Lightfoot, a Canadian folk singer-songwriter best known in the U.S. for his hits “Sundown,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” passed away on May 1 in a Toronto hospital. He was 84. Throughout his career, he performed 500 songs and over 1,500 concerts; singers like Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley, and the late Harry Belafonte have covered many of his compositions. Throughout his career, Lightfoot received four Grammy nominations as well.
Paxton Whitehead
The seasoned stage performer from Britain, pictured on the left, passed away on June 16 at 85. After making his Broadway debut in The Affair in 1962, Whitehead went on to star in sixteen more Broadway shows, including a 1980 revival of Camelot, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in the role of Pellinore. In 1986, he made his first feature film, Back to School, when he played the stern dean with a notable performance. Viewers were most familiar with him from his extensive history of television guest spots, most notably on Mad About You and Friends.
Jim Tweto
At 68, Jim Tweto, a pilot who appeared on the Discovery Channel series Flying Wild Alaska, passed away on June 16. Tweto’s Cessna 180 appeared to have problems right away after takeoff, and he lost his life in the disaster. Along with him on the flight path was Shane Reynolds, a hunting and fishing guide. During the 2011–2012 season of Flying Wild Alaska, Tweto appeared with his family. Tweto was running their Era Alaska airline at the time.
Lisa Marie Presley
Presley, a singer, and Elvis Presley’s daughter, passed away on January 12 from cardiac arrest at the age of 54. After starting a music career, she put out three albums. In 2003, she released her first album, which peaked at number five on the U.S. charts. She was also well-known for her brief 1994–1996 marriage to Michael Jackson, eloping with him less than three weeks after she and Danny Keough divorced.
Two days before her demise, she had made her last public appearance at the Golden Globe Honors, where the historical movie Elvis, which tells the story of her father, was up for numerous awards.
Bobby Caldwell
Caldwell was renowned for his contributions to the jazz, soul, and R&B genres. His most well-known hit song, “What You Won’t Do For Love,” has been covered numerous times. Tupac Shakur, Natalie Cole, Peabo Bryson, Boyz II Men, Jessie Ware, and English pop group Go West are among the musicians who have sampled or recorded that song. Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 debut album became double platinum in the U.S., catapulting him to stardom. Following his passing, tributes from fans demonstrated Caldwell’s impact on music. He died on March 17 at the age of 71.
