Influential actor of the stage and screen Ben Gazzara, a veteran of the original Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway and more than 55 films, passed away from pancreatic cancer at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan on February 3, according to The New York Times. He was 81 years old.

Gazzara was born on August 28, 1930 ...

Actress and operatic soprano Patricia Neway, who won a Tony Award for creating the role of Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music on Broadway, died of natural causes in Corinth, Vermont on January 24. She was 92 years old.

Born in Brooklyn in 1919, Neway earned a degree in mathematics from Staten Island’s Notre Dame College before going ...

Two-time Tony-nominated designer Eiko Ishioka, who recently served as costume designer for Broadway’s Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark and the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony, passed away from pancreatic cancer on January 26, according to The New York Times. She was 73 years old.

Ishioka was born on July 12, 1938 in Tokyo. She attended the Tokyo National University, graduating ...

Revered British actor and two-time Tony nominee Nicol Williamson passed away from esophageal cancer on December 16 in Amsterdam. He was 75 years old.

Born in 1936 in Hamilton, Scotland, Williamson was considered by some critics to be among the finest actors of his generation in the late 1960s and '70s, along with contemporaries like Albert Finney and Richard Burton ...

Video producer Bradshaw Smith, a fixture at theatrical events in collaboration with reporter/producer Richard Ridge, died on January 16 after suffering a sudden stroke. He was 57 and lived in Manhattan and Cherry Grove, Fire Island.

Born on April 14, 1954, in Derby Connecticut, Smith arrived in New York in the mid-70s and launched a career as a cabaret ...

Character actor William Duell, a veteran of 14 Broadway shows and over 20 films, passed away from respiratory failure at his home in Manhattan on December 22, according to the New York Times. He was 88 years old.

Duell was born on August 30, 1923, in Corinth, NY. He attended Green Mountain College in Vermont, and after serving as a ...

Ken Russell, the Oscar-nominated British director who translated the Who’s concept album Tommy into a 1975 film, died in his sleep on November 27. According to his actress wife, Lisi Tribble, Russell had been developing a musical film version of Alice in Wonderland and preparing for the re-release of his controversial 1971 film The Devils at the time of ...

British playwright and screenwriter Shelagh Delaney, best known for her highly influential 1958 debut play A Taste of Honey, died at her daughter’s home in eastern England on November 20. She was 71 years old. The cause was cancer.

Delaney was just 19 years old when A Taste of Honey was first performed on May 27, 1958 at the ...

Jerry Leiber, the rock-and-roll songwriter whose hits were featured in seven Broadway musicals, died on August 22 of cardiopulmonary failure. Leiber had a 60-year-long partnership with Mike Stoller that produced hits such as “On Broadway,” “Spanish Harlem,” “Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “There Goes My Baby,” “Charlie Brown” and many more. He was 78.

Leiber met Stoller in 1950 ...

Tony Award-winning actor John Wood, known for his work in the plays of Tom Stoppard, died in his sleep on August 6 at age 81. In a statement to the BBC, his agent said, “John was a distinguished classical actor, who was much loved and respected by his colleagues, and will be greatly missed.”

Wood won the 1976 Best Actor ...