Edward A. Feiner, who as the chief architect of the U.S. government revolutionized the public image of countless federal agencies by hiring renowned architects to design hundreds of courthouses, government laboratories, border stations and office buildings, died on July 1 in Falls Church, VA. He was 75. He brought great design to projects both high-profile and obscure. His list of collaborators amounted to a Who’s Who of modern American architecture, including Richard Meier, I.M. Pei, [...]

Jan Langone, a diligent food scholar who started a mail-order cookbook business from her basement that grew into one of the nation’s great cookbook collections, died August 3 in Ann Arbor, MI. She was 89. In her lifetime, she collected food-related books and ephemera, including the nation’s first cookbook, American Cookery, written by Amelia Simmons and published in 1796. She also secured a 1971 text believed to be the nation’s first Jewish cookbook. Ms. Longone’s [...]

Henrique Morelenbaum, considered one of Brazil’s most prominent conductors and music directors, died July 29 in Rio de Janeiro. He was 90. “He was one of the most important personalities in Brazilian musical life over the last 70 years, as an instrumentalist, conductor, teacher and administrator. He left his mark on the institutions where he worked,” read a tribute posted by the Brazilian Academy of Music, of which Morelenbaum was an active member. Over the [...]

Eli Evans, a prolific writer about southern Jews and an influential grant-maker, died July 26 in New York City, two days shy of his 86th birthday. In The Provincials: A Personal History of Jews in the South, the first of several books Evans wrote on the subject, he detailed growing up a Jew in Durham and the antisemitism directed at his family. After working briefly in politics, as a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson and [...]

Burt Metcalfe, executive producer of the hit comedy-drama series “M*A*S*H*” for the last six of its 11 seasons, and who helped write the two-and-a-half-hour final episode, died on July 27 in Los Angeles. He was 87. Mr. Metcalf had been an actor and casting director before becoming a producer of “M*A*S*H*” about the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, a show widely regarded as one of the best series [...]

Bert Fields, the dean of Hollywood lawyers whose services were called on by superstars and studios alike, died on August 7 at his home in Malibu. He was 93. Over the decades, stars and studio heads who turned to Mr. Fields included Madonna, Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Ovitz, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Early in his career, Mr. Fields did some acting, appearing as a prosecutor [...]