Refugee, prisoner, wine merchant, spy: Peter Sichel was many things in his long, colorful life, but he was probably most often identified as the man who made Blue Nun one of the most popular wines in the world in the 1970s and ‘80s. At its peak in 1985, 30 million bottles of this slightly sweet German white wine were sold. By the time Mr. Sichel took charge of his family’s wine business in 1960, he [...]

Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and other news organizations who, in exacting detail, explored the Mafia’s many tentacles, died on March 4 in Manhattan. He was 90. As a boy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Mr. Raab saw the mob up close. There, he told Time magazine in 1974, he was “surrounded by the kind of legendary criminals you read about — bookmakers, con artists, Jewish and Italian gangsters.” “I [...]

Uri Shulevitz, a polish-born children’s book author and illustrator who survived a harrowing childhood traversing Europe to escape the Nazis, and wove those experiences into his works, died on Feb. 15 in Manhattan. He was 89. Mr. Shulevitz published more than 40 books. He received a Caldecott Medal and other Caldecott honors. A painter as well as an illustrator, he exhibited his work in numerous galleries and museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago and [...]

Stanley R. Jaffe, who became president of Paramount at 29, then left after just a few years to become an Oscar-winning producer of films like “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Fatal Attraction” and “The Accused,” died on March 10 at his home in Rancho Mirage, CA. He was 84. Mr. Jaffe was known as a hands-on producer, and his work on “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), a searing divorce drama, showed why. The movie was based on a [...]

John Feinstein, a sportswriter for The Washington Post and the author of more than 40 books, including the best-sellers A Season On The Brink (1986) and A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour (1995), died on March 20 at his brother’s home in McLean, VA. He was 69. Mr. Feinstein became one of America’s best-known sportswriters after A Season On The Brink, which focused on the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team [...]

Nita M. Lowey, who represented the 20th congressional district and, later, the 17th congressional district in Westchester County for a total of 32 years, died on March 15 at her home in Harrison, NY. She was 87. Ms. Lowey, an ardent supporter of liberal causes, served on the House Appropriations Committee for nearly all her time in Washington, rising to be the first woman to lead it. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois House Republican [...]

Max Frankel who fled Nazi Germany as a boy and rose to pinnacles of American journalism as a Pulitzer Prize-wining correspondent for The New York Times and later as its executive editor, died on March 23 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94. He found his calling in journalism, and it led to global news assignments and the major events of his era — the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War, the collapse of [...]

Jeffrey Bruce Klein, one of four journalists who in 1976 founded the magazine Mother Jones, rooted it in the crusading left-wing politics of the 1960s. He returned in 1992 as editor in chief to rebrand it for younger more digital readers. He died on March 13 at his home in Menlo Park, CA at age 77. The founders called it Mother Jones in honor of the fiery labor leader Mary Harris Jones. Mr. Klein left [...]