In his testimony before the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Charles Silverstein persuaded the association to change the language of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders, forging a path that ultimately ended the profession’s pathologizing of homosexuality. Dr. Silverstein died on Jan. 30 at his home in Manhattan. He was 87. Dr. Silverstein wrote books about gay sex, and served as founding editor of The Journal of Homosexuality that worked to break down prejudices [...]

Paul Berg, a 1980 Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who ushered in the era of genetic engineering in 1971 by successfully combining DNA from two different organisms, died on Feb. 15 at his home on the Stanford University campus in California. He was 96. Dr. Berg provided the initial links in the chain of advances that has led to the genetic engineering of new therapeutic treatments for diseases and vaccines against viruses, like Covid-19. “Nurturing curiosity and [...]

Howard Bragman, a publicist who often helped the famous and the reluctantly famous navigate embarrassing or volatile moments, and who also advised gay clients coming forward, died Feb. 11 in Los Angeles. He was 66. Over his career, he promoted products and announced engagements and deaths, but clients often made use of his services in times of crisis. Ed McMahon called on Mr. Bragman when he faced possible foreclosure on his multi-million-dollar home in Beverly [...]

Marianne Mantell who in her early 20s helped start the audiobook revolution by co-founding, with Barbara Holdridge, Caedmon Records, a spoken-word company that turned recordings of literary giants, including Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Dylan Thomas, into mass-market entertainment, died on Jan. 22 at her home in Princeton, NJ. She was 93. Success came quickly. Caedmon’s first release, an album by Dylan Thomas whose centerpiece was his short story, “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” sold [...]

Richard Belzer, the comedian and actor best known for playing the acerbic Detective John Munch across a number of NBC crime dramas, including “Law & Order: SVU,” over more than two decades, died Feb. 19, at his home in France. Over the course of his career, Belzer portrayed a detective in 11 television series, including “The Wire” and “The X-Files.” He made crossover appearances in-character in the comedies “30 Rock,” “Arrested Development,” and “Unbreakable Kimmy [...]

One day after the Feb. 19 death of Richard Belzer, the long-time MC at Rick Newman’s Catch A Rising Star comedy club on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, The New York Times reported the death of Rick Newman himself, who in 1972 had opened the trendy club where Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Freddie Prinze, Jay Leno and countless other comedians did some of their earliest work. “On any given night, you might catch singers, [...]

Ted Lerner, the billionaire real estate developer who bought the Washington Nationals in 2006 for $450 million and oversaw their thrilling rise to 2019 World Series victors, rewarding his native city with its first major league championship in 95 years, died on Sunday, Feb. 19, at his home in Chevy Chase, MD. He was 97. “In my first legal case, the court appointed me to represent a parking attendant charged with stealing the cars he [...]

Rena Gluck, a dancer, choreographer and educator who was instrumental in creating Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, the country’s pre-eminent dance troupe, died on Jan. 13 at her home in Tel Aviv. Her twin brother, Milton Gluck, died on the same day, at a hospital in Manhattan. In Israel, Ms. Gluck introduced a rigorous dance technique, honed through years of training with American modern-dance pioneers, including Martha Graham, who had been her teacher at Juilliard. After [...]