James Lipton, who as host of the Bravo series, “Inside the Actors Studio,” delighted television audiences with his perceptive interviews with celebrity actors, died March 2 at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.

Mr. Lipton was a knowledgeable interviewer, who focused on craft while avoiding gossip, winning the trust of his famous guests as well as an international audience. During his 23-season run, the show became a coveted stop for writers, directors and performers, who would give some of their longest and most unguarded interviews to Mr. Lipton. Among the 275 or so stars he interviewed were Alex Baldwin, Neil Simon, Sally Field, Dennis Hopper, Sidney Lumet and so many others.

Famously, he completed each episode by asking his guests a series of questions employed by the French television host Bernard Pivot — What is your favorite curse word? What is your favorite word? What is the profession you wouldn’t have wanted to practice? If God exists, what would you like to hear him say upon your arrival at heaven’s door? For some, it was a favorite part of the show.

Editor’s note: Some years ago, returning from a Thanksgiving dinner at our niece’s house in Connecticut, we spotted James Lipton aboard the Bridgeport to Port Jefferson ferry. As huge fans of his program, we struck up a conversation with him, about his program, the state of theater in general, and the actors who make it live. The conversation was memorable on many levels, particularly his keen understanding of his interviewees as well as his audience. He said he felt that the popularity of his program was not that he interviewed famous people, but that famous people were also just people, and truly wanted to reveal that about themselves. It was that aspect of the interview that most engaged him as well as his audience, he said.

Speaking personally regarding the Bernard Pivot question about a favorite word, the best response, without question, was given by Paul Newman. While most of Mr. Lipton’s guests were suggesting words like, “peace,” “beautiful,” “love,” and the like, Paul Newman broke up the audience as well as James Lipton. His favorite word? “Lunch.” (SMB)

Michael Hertz, the graphic designer who helped make the New York City subway system legible for more than four million riders a day, died Feb. 18, at Nassau University Medical Center. He was 87.

In 1979, Hertz’s firm, Michael Hertz Associates, debuted a new map for the New York City subway. The map replaced Italian artist Massimo Vignelli’s abstract design from 1972, which was seen to have sacrificed accuracy for aesthetics, and prompted a flood of complaints from straphangers. Hertz and his team’s answer was to orient the map around recognizable landmarks like Central Park, and evoke the real geography and neighborhoods of the five boroughs.

While Hertz’s firm’s design has undergone revisions since 1979, including by Hertz himself in 1998, the template remains in place. “All New Yorkers carry some image of Mike’s subway map in their heads,” said Chuck Gordanier, the chief of marketing and advertising for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Lawrence Tesler, a pioneering computer scientist who helped make it easier for users to interact with computers, whether cutting and pasting text or selecting text by dragging a cursor through it, died Feb. 23 at his home in Portola Valley, CA. He was 74.

Mr. Tesler worked at a number of Silicon Valley’s most important companies, including Apple under Steve Jobs. But it was as a young researcher for Xerox at its Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s that he did his most significant work: helping to develop today’s style of computer interaction based on a graphical desktop metaphor and a mouse. Mr. Tesler was passionate about simplifying interaction with computers, the New York Times said.

Philip Leder, a biologist who helped decipher the genetic code and discovered a genetic cause of cancer, died Feb. 2 at his home in Chestnut Hill, MA. He was 85.

Dr. Leder helped accomplish the final step in deciphering the genetic code early in his career. He went on to help unravel the genetic mechanisms behind the great diversity of antibody molecules. He then discovered that the mismanagement of a gene that guides the growth of cells was a major cause of cancer.

In an interview for a 1994 book, The God I Believe In: Conversations About Judaism, the author, Joshua O. Haberman, asked him if he believed in the hope of a Messiah. Dr. Leder replied, “I do have faith that, as we come to understand ourselves more as beings, as individuals, as genetically programmed organisms, this knowledge will contribute to bettering the human condition. That’s my Messianic faith, in a way.”

Sy Sperling, a businessman who helped bring the hair-loss industry into the mainstream with huge late-night ad buys, died Feb. 19 at a hospital in Boca Raton, FL. He was 78.

Mr. Sperling achieved a kind of cult fame in the 1980s for his business, then called the Hair Club for Men. What propelled the concept was the ad kicker: he would hold up an old photo of his own bald pate and tell viewers, “I’m not only the Hair Club president, I’m also a client.” In 2000, Mr. Sperling sold his company to a private-equity firm for $45 million.

George Steiner, the celebrated literary critic, died Feb. 3 at his home in Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. He was 90. Steiner was born in Paris to Austrian parents who had emigrated to escape anti-Semitism. The family moved to New York City in 1940, refugees from the Holocaust.

While still in his 20s, Steiner filled the seat previously held by Edmund Wilson at The New Yorker, serving as senior book reviewer and contributing more than 200 reviews over 30 years. He also lectured at the University of Vienna, New York University, and Harvard.

“I can only explain what I perceive as the Jew’s mission: To be a guest of humanity,” Steiner said. “What must a guest do? He must live among people, wherever they may be. And a good guest, a worthy guest, leaves the place where he has been staying a bit cleaner, a bit more beautiful, a bit more interesting than he found it.”

Greta Beer, a Romanian Jew whose decades-long search for her father’s Swiss bank account helped force banks in Switzerland to compensate Holocaust victims and their heirs over lost assets, died Jan. 23 at her home in Brighton, MA. She was 98.

By becoming the public face of thousands of victims, she helped generate the momentum that led to the $.25 billion settlement of a class-action suit against the Swiss banks in 1998.