Former U.S. Secretary of State and national security advisor Henry Kissinger, arguably one of the most influential and also controversial foreign policy figures of our time, died Nov. 29 at the age of 100. His policies and strategies under former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford brought widespread attention, both positive and negative, that changed the course of American history. Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to arrange the end of U.S. military [...]

Writer-producer Norman Lear, who revolutionized American comedy with such daring and immensely popular early-‘70s sitcoms as “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son,” died Dec. 5 in his home in Los Angeles. He was 101. Lear’s shows were the first to address the serious political cultural and social flashpoints of the day — racism, abortion, homosexuality, the Vietnam War — by working new wrinkles into the standard domestic comedy formula. No subject was taboo. [...]

Frances Sternhagen, the Tony Award-winning actress who played leading roles in stage productions of “Driving Miss Daisy” and “On Golden Pond” as formidable older women when she was so young that she had to wear aging makeup, died on Dec. 4 in New Rochelle, NY. She was 93. Miss Sternhagen won Tonys as featured actress in a play for her performances in two widely diverse productions. In a 1995 Broadway revival of “The Heiress,” based [...]

Suzanne Shepherd, an influential New York acting teacher who found success in midlife as a character actress, including memorable turns as the mothers of Edie Falco’s character on “The Sopranos” and Lorraine Bracco’s character in “Goodfellas,” died on Nov. 17 at her home in Manhattan. She was 89. After establishing herself as a stage actress and director, Ms. Shepherd became well known as an acting instructor — her students included Gregory Hines, Bebe Neuwirth and [...]

Dr. Abraham B. Bergman, a pediatrician who was instrumental in passing a federal law to combat sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), died on Nov. 10 in Seattle. He was 91. In the 1960s and early ‘70s, Dr. Bergman was president of the National Foundation for Sudden Infant Death, a grass-roots group that supported parents who had lost children to what was once commonly called crib death. Although SIDS, as the syndrome became known, was the [...]

During those long car and airplane trips to visit family, spare a thought for Irving Liberman, a scientist who helped make GPS a reliable, precise resource. He died on Nov. 6 at his home in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. He was 86. A lifelong tinkerer, Mr. Liberman was always fascinated by how things worked. At a young age, he would take things apart and put them back together, sometimes with parts left over, [...]

Andrea Fay Friedman, an actress with Down syndrome, who starred in the television series “Life Goes On” died on Dec. 3 at her home in Santa Monica, CA. She was 53. Ms. Friedman was known for her portrayals of people with developmental disabilities. She called her Down syndrome her “up syndrome,” her father, Hal Friedman, said in a phone interview. Her breakthrough in acting came in 1992 on the TV drama “Life Goes On” about [...]

Rabbi David Ellenson, a scholar who wrestled with the interplay of tradition and modernity in Judaism,, and who shaped a generation of Reform rabbis as a teacher and later as the president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, died on Dec. 7 at his home in Manhattan. He was 76. He taught for more than 40 years at the Reform seminary, which trains rabbis, cantors and Jewish educators on four campuses: in New York, [...]