by Tim Gordon
There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better;
Some have gone and some remain.Tho’ I know I’ll never lose affection
My Life, The Beatles (1965)
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them,
In my life I love you more.
This year, we lost several giants of the entertainment and sports world. We’ve said goodbye to several beloved public figures and influential icons of culture.
Click through the gallery for more on the lives and legacies of the stars we have recently lost.
Andre Braugher (July 1, 1962 – December 11, 2023) was known for his roles as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Captain Raymond Holt in the Fox/NBC police comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He won two Primetime Emmy Awards and was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. His film roles include Glory, Primal Fear, City of Angels, Frequency, Duets, Poseidon,
The Mist, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Salt. He also had supporting roles in series such as Thief, The Good Fight, House, New Girl, and BoJack Horseman.
Ellen Holly (January 16, 1931 – December 6, 2023) began her career on stage in the late 1950s and was perhaps best known for her role as Carla Gray–Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. Holly is noted as the first African American to appear on daytime television in a leading role.
Jean Knight (née Caliste; January 26, 1943 – November 22, 2023) was an R&B and soul singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. Launching her professional career in the mid-1960s, Knight was best known for her 1971 hit single “Mr. Big Stuff,” released by Stax Records.
Ron Cephas Jones (January 8, 1957 – August 19, 2023) was best known for his role as William Hill in the drama series This Is Us, which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award; along with four consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning twice for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2018 and 2020.
Richard Roundtree (July 9, 1942 – October 24, 2023) was best known for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 blaxploitation film Shaft and four of its sequels, Shaft’s Big Score!, Shaft in Africa, its 2000 sequel and its 2019 sequel, as well as the eponymous television series. He was also known for his features in several TV series, including Roots, Generations, and Desperate Housewives. Considered “the first Black action hero,” Roundtree was credited with having an impact on the rise of African American leading actors in Hollywood
projects, thanks to his successful performances in the blaxploitation genre.
Clarence Avant (February 25, 1931 – August 13, 2023) was a prominent American music executive and film producer. He began his professional journey in the 1950s, managing Teddy P’s Lounge in Newark, New Jersey. Under the guidance of Joe Glaser, a notable music manager of the era, Avant managed a diverse portfolio of artists. In the 1960s, he founded Avant Garde Enterprises, marking a significant step in his contributions to the music sector. He was instrumental in the formation and oversight of several record labels. Additionally, he expanded his professional reach into broadcasting by acquiring KTYM-FM, distinguished as the first African-American-owned FM radio station in metropolitan Los Angeles. Widely recognized as “The Black Godfather,” Avant’s career was characterized by his advocacy for equitable treatment and compensation for African American artists in the entertainment industry. His efforts were acknowledged with his 2021 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Sixto Rodriguez (July 10, 1942 – August 8, 2023), known as Rodriguez, was a musician from Detroit, Michigan. Though his career was initially met with little fanfare in the United States, he found success in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Unbeknownst to him for decades, his music grew extremely successful and influential in South Africa, where he is believed to have sold more records than Elvis Presley. Information about him was scarce, and it was incorrectly rumored there that he had died by suicide shortly after releasing his second album. In the 1990s, determined South African fans managed to find and contact Rodriguez, which led to an unexpected revival of his musical career. This was told in the 2012 Academy Award-winning documentary film Searching for Sugar Man and helped give Rodriguez a measure of fame in his home country.
Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was a singer, songwriter and actress. Known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the husband-wife duo Ike & Tina Turner before launching a successful career as a solo performer. She was recognized for her “swagger, sensuality, powerful gravelly vocals, and unstoppable energy.” Turner began her career with her future husband Ike Turner’s band, the Kings of Rhythm, in 1956. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, “Boxtop”, in 1958. In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit single “A Fool in Love”. The Ike & Tina Turner Revue became “one of the most formidable live acts in history.” The duo released hits such as “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”, “River Deep – Mountain High”, “Proud Mary”, and “Nutbush City Limits” before disbanding in 1976.
In the 1980s, Turner launched “one of the greatest comebacks in music history.” Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100. At 44, she was the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100. Her chart success continued with “Better Be Good to Me”, “Private Dancer”, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”, “Typical Male”, “The Best”, “I Don’t Wanna Fight”, and “GoldenEye”. She embarked on the Break Every Rule World Tour, which became the top-grossing female tour of the 1980s, and set a Guinness World Record for the then-largest paying audience in a concert (180,000).
Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). In 1986, she published her autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story, which was adapted for the 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do with It. In 2009, Turner retired after completing her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. In 2018, she was the subject of Tina, a jukebox musical. She sold more than 100 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She received 12 Grammy Awards, which include eight competitive awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame inductions. She was the first black artist and the first woman to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, with Ike Turner in 1991 and as a solo artist in 2021. She was also a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
Jim Brown (February 17, 1936 – May 18, 2023) was a football fullback, civil rights activist, and actor. He played for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965. Considered to be one of the greatest running backs of all time, as well as one of the greatest players in NFL history, Brown was a Pro Bowl invitee every season he was in the league, was recognized as the AP NFL Most Valuable Player three times, and won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964. He led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons, and by the time he retired, he held most major rushing records. In 2002, he was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever.
Shortly before the end of his football career, Brown became an actor. He retired at the peak of his football career to pursue an acting career. He obtained 53 acting credits and several leading roles throughout the 1970s. He has been described as Hollywood’s first black action hero and his role in the 1969 film 100 Rifles made cinematic history for featuring interracial love scenes. Brown was one of the few athletes, and among the most prominent African Americans, to speak out on racial issues as the civil rights movement was growing in the 1950s. He participated in the Cleveland Summit after Muhammad Ali faced imprisonment for refusing to enter the draft for the Vietnam War, and he founded the Black Economic Union to help promote economic opportunities for minority-owned businesses. Brown later launched a foundation focused on diverting at-risk youth from violence by teaching them life skills, through which he facilitated the Watts truce between rival street gangs in Los Angeles.
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was a singer, actor, and civil rights activist, who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte’s career breakthrough album Calypso was the first million-selling LP by a single artist. Belafonte was best known for his recordings of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”, “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)”, “Jamaica Farewell”, and “Mary’s Boy Child.”
He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, Odds Against Tomorrow, Buck and the Preacher, and Uptown Saturday Night. He made his final feature film appearance in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson to be a mentor. Belafonte was also a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the academy’s 6th Annual Governors Awards, and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category. He is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category.
Lance Reddick (June 7, 1962 – March 17, 2023) was an actor and musician. He played Cedric Daniels in The Wire, Phillip Broyles in Fringe, and Chief Irvin Irving in Bosch. In film, he starred as Charon in the John Wick franchise and as General Caulfield in White House Down. He was also known for portraying Detective Johnny Basil in season 4 of Oz, Matthew Abaddon in Lost, and Albert Wesker and his clones in Resident Evil.
Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023) was a jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Shorter came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary composer. In 1964 he joined Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report in 1970. He recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. Many Shorter compositions have become jazz standards, and his music has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise, and commendation. Shorter won 12 Grammy Awards. He was acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as DownBeat‘s annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics’ poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers’ for 18. Music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter as “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for the greatest living improviser.”
Jo Raquel Welch (née Tejada; September 5, 1940 – February 15, 2023) was an actress. She first garnered attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage, after which she signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C. Although Welch had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became bestselling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol.
She later starred in Bedazzled, Bandolero!, 100 Rifles, Myra Breckinridge, Hannie Caulder, Kansas City Bomber, The Last of Sheila, The Three Musketeers, The Wild Party, and Mother, Jugs & Speed. Through her portrayal of strong female characters, helping her break the mold of the traditional sex symbol, Welch developed a unique film persona that made her an icon of the 1960s and 1970s. Her rise to stardom in the mid-1960s was partly credited with ending Hollywood’s vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell. Her love scene with Jim Brown in 100 Rifles also made cinematic history with their portrayal of interracial intimacy. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 1974 for her performance as Constance Bonacieux in The Three Musketeers and reprised the role in its sequel the following year. Welch was chosen as one of the “100 Sexiest Stars in Film History,” as well as number 3 on Playboy’s list of “100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century.”
David Jolicoeur (September 21, 1968 – February 12, 2023), also known as Trugoy the Dove, Plug Two, and Dave, was a rapper best known as one-third of the hip-hop group De La Soul. Along with the other members of De La Soul, Jolicoeur was a member of the collective Native Tongues. Jolicoeur co-wrote the Gorillaz song “Feel Good Inc.”, which featured De La Soul and won a Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Lola Mitchell (August 7, 1979 – January 1, 2023), better known by her stage name Gangsta Boo, was a rapper. She rose to prominence as a member of Three 6 Mafia, which she joined at the age of 14. After releasing six albums, she left the group and its record label after the release of her second solo album, Both Worlds *69, due to financial disputes and issues regarding the promotion of the album. She subsequently released several solo albums and became known for collaborating with artists such as Eminem, Run the Jewels, La Chat, Latto, GloRilla, Outkast, Foxy Brown, Tinashe, Lil Jon, and Yelawolf.
Rudolph “Rudy” Isley (April 1, 1939 – October 11, 2023) was a singer-songwriter and one of the founding members of The Isley Brothers.
Keisha Nash Whitaker was an actor/producer who was married to actor Forest Whitaker for more than 20 years.