Michael Wolff’s mother, Van, died Tuesday morning after a two and half year illness, the Observer has learned.
Mr. Wolff wrote about his mother’s declining health and worsening dementia in a moving and controversial story for New York Magazine in May that questioned the modern approach to end-of-life care. Read More
Screenwriter, director, and essayist Nora Ephron died last night; she was 71. Wonderful tributes and memories of Ephron’s legacy keep pouring out (just one example: it turns out the You’ve Got Mail website is very much intact, and itself a wonderful, odd little remnant of one of her more profound tributes to the Upper West Side).
If you haven’t read the New York Times‘ exceptional obituary of Ms. Ephron do so. Meanwhile, we have been relishing our own small piece of Ephron’s legacy: The You’ve Got Mail character Frank Navasky, played by Greg Kinnear. Read More
Adam Yauch, a founding member of the Beastie Boys—otherwise known as “MCA”—died today in his native New York City after a prolonged battle with cancer. He was a crucial component in the rise of hip hop as a culture and rap as an art form, and instrumental in the group’s transition: from their early days as a punk outfit and then a brash and belligerent party-rap act, to one of the most sonically deft acts in the history of contemporary music. Never content to rest on their laurels, the Beastie Boys always surprised their listeners, contemporaries, and critics with each subsequent musical course they charted. Yauch’s influence on the lasting relevance of the Beastie Boys, their evolution, and their cultural purview can’t be overstated. Read More
Dick Clark, who famously acted as the longtime host and producer of American Bandstand, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, The $10,000 Pyramid, as well as a stint as the announcer on MTV’s short-lived The Jon Stewart Show, is dead at 82. His representative told the New York Times—who noted Clark as an “icon”—that he died of a heart attack.
Over the last decade, Clark’s popularity waned as another new plucky, seemingly immortal Caucasian man named Ryan Seacrest generally took his place at the throne of organizing innocuous television that everybody you know watches, shame factor not withstanding. His most famous appearance in the final decade of his life may have been at the top of it, in Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, in what is arguably one of the funniest scenes in the film: Dick Clark escaping Michael Moore by yelling at his associates to jump in a van, and then speeding away in it. Read More
Christopher Hitchens died yesterday at the age of 62 after a long illness with cancer. The Observer was lucky enough to have his byline grace our pages, including this book review of Michael Isikoff’s Uncovering Clinton, (note how he calls Mr. Isikoff’s prose “Capitoline” — “’rising stars’ intersecting with ‘insiders’ all the way”) and Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others.
“I never met him, and spoke with him on the phone only rarely, but from our slender contact I can tell you that he was an absolute professional: On time, spot on, and spotless. Every editor’s dream,” remembered former Observer books editor Adam Begley. “I would have used him constantly if I’d had the budget.”
“His writing leaves an enduring and inspiring legacy to readers everywhere,” said his book publisher, Cary Goldstein of Twelve, in a statement. “We are proud to have played our part in sharing it with the world. He will be missed.” Twelve is publishing a forthcoming memoir, Mortality.
George Whitman, the owner of the legendary Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co., died yesterday at the age of 98. Known for extending hospitality to writers on Parisian sojourns, Mr. Whitman’s bookstore carried on a literary dream long after that dream died. Alexander Nazaryan remembers his stay there at Read More
Tyler Rush, The New York Observer’s production manager and a 13-year veteran of the paper, died on Saturday at the home he shared with his partner, Melanie Hogue, in Cairo, N.Y. The cause was a heart attack. He was 49 years old. Read More
The Observer was walking down Fifth Avenue late this afternoon and happened to pass the Apple Store. Although the store itself, now sheathed in scaffolding, saw the normal hustle and bustle of buyers descend into its subterranean depths, another crowd had gathered outside to honor the memory of the company’s founder Steve Jobs. Read More
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is mourning the death of 22-year-old City Council aide Hope Reichbach, who was found dead in her apartment yesterday afternoon.
“All of Brooklyn’s thoughts and prayers are with Hope’s parents, Judge Gustin Reichbach and Ellen Meyers, her friends, and of course, my condolences to Councilman Levin and his staff. Here Read More
