Peter Tarnoff, a seasoned diplomat whose work behind the scenes for presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton included establishing a secret channel to Fidel Castro and helping arrange the escape of six U.S. Embassy officials from Iran, an escapade later depicted in the 2012 movie “Argo,” died on Nov. 1 at his home in San Francisco. He was 86. While other outsized personalities like Richard Holbrooke and Anthony Lake became famous, Mr. Tarnoff preferred to [...]

Robert Brustein, an advocate for nonprofit theater, where he served at various times as critic, teacher, producer, director, playwright and actor, died on Oct. 29 at his home in Cambridge, MA. He was 96. Mr. Brustein was dean of the drama school at Yale and founded and ran the Yale Repertory Theater and the American Repertory Theater at Harvard, producing well over 100 plays. He taught at both institutions. He also reviewed stage productions for [...]

Anita A. Summers, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who addressed a variety of public policy topics, including zoning, education and tax incentives, died on Oct. 29 at her home in Gladwyne, PA. She was 98. Her son Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Secretary of the Treasury, confirmed the death. She insisted that public policymaking be strengthened with economic analysis, that the business and finance world could benefit [...]

Alan G. Hevesi, a New York politician who spent 35 years as an elected official until he suffered a fall from grace that led to his resignation as state comptroller and 20 months in prison for corruption, died on Nov. 9 in East Meadow, L.I. He was 83. On Oct. 23, 2006, a state ethics commission concluded that Mr. Hevesi had knowingly violated the law by improperly assigning a public employee to handle personal chores. [...]

Ida Applebroog, an artist who confronted the violence, coercion and mortality that can simmer beneath everyday relationships with a prolific stream of drawings, paintings, sculptures and videos, died on Oct. 21 at her home in Manhattan. She was 93. Writing in The New York Times in 2010, Randy Kennedy called her work “funny in a way that skews toward weird without losing the ha-ha.” Her work also demonstrates her comfort in grappling with the unspeakable, [...]

Gary Winnick, a former junk-bond salesman who in 1997 founded Global Crossing, a telecommunications company that laid fiber-optic cable underwater around the world to speed internet and phone traffic, but that imploded five years later under billions of dollars in debt, died on Nov. 4 at his estate in Los Angeles. He was 76. For a time, Mr. Winnick was the wealthiest person in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. He spread [...]