Among the Americans who died in 2023 are several who had made towering contributions to the arts, industry, sports, science, law, politics and foreign policy.
America lost singer Tony Bennett, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, award-winning documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski, groundbreaking television producer Norman Lear, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and basketball legend Willis Reed.
ShareAmerica salutes them all and offers these tributes to a few other notable Americans we lost:
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States’ highest court, helped open doors for other women. After graduating near the top of her class at Stanford University’s law school, she could not land a job at a law firm, because women lawyers were generally not welcome at the time. But she served as Arizona’s assistant attorney general for four years and became an Arizona state senator before being elected a judge. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated her to the Supreme Court, where she served from 1981 to 2006, wielding significant influence. She cast the decisive vote in a ruling that allows a federal agency to take steps to reduce air pollution when a state fails to act, and she swayed the court to allow people the right to a second doctor’s opinion in certain cases. She died December 1 at age 93.
Former U.S. first lady Rosalynn Carter, wife of former President Jimmy Carter, testified before Congress on extending health insurance to cover mental illness, lobbied for support for family caregivers and fought for women’s rights. In fact, she has often been described as the most politically active American first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt.
In her post-White House years, she and her husband were partners in philanthropy, working side by side to build houses for the needy, while also jointly establishing the Carter Center, a nonprofit that works to prevent conflict, support democracy and eradicate diseases worldwide. In 1999, both she and her husband were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. She died November 19 at age 96.
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, survived a difficult childhood to emerge as a trailblazer for women in politics. In 1978, she became the first woman mayor of San Francisco, and in 1992, she became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from her home state. Known for championing progressive causes such as gun control and marriage equality, she spent more than 30 years in the Senate, and was the first woman to chair the powerful Senate Rules and Senate Intelligence committees. She died September 29 at age 90.
Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, a troubadour whose songs celebrated a laid-back lifestyle, attracted legions of fans with his odes to beaches, boats and leisure. His musical style blended country and Caribbean music, as in his most famous song, “Margaritaville.” Despite his image as an amiable slacker, Buffett worked nonstop as a performer, an author and a marketer — launching a string of restaurants, casinos and retirement communities. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. He died September 1 at age 76.
Scientist John Goodenough shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry with M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their work in developing lithium-ion batteries, which made portable electronic devices, pacemakers and electric cars feasible. Goodenough headed the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford before joining the University of Texas at Austin faculty in 1986, where he was still teaching and performing research at age 97, when he won the Nobel Prize. The oldest Nobel winner in history, he said he was grateful he hadn’t been forced to retire at 65. “Live to 97 and you can do anything,” he said. Goodenough died June 25 at age 100.
Biologist Roger Payne sparked a worldwide conservation movement with his discovery that whales serenade one another. What’s more, he recorded the whales’ vocalizations to create a 1970 bestselling album (Songs of the Humpback Whale) that raised awareness of the animals’ plight. Describing the whales’ serenades as “exuberant, uninterrupted rivers of sound,” Payne noted that the giant marine mammals’ songs — performed solo and in ensemble — could be heard for thousands of kilmometers across an ocean. The emotive power of whales’ voices had the practical effect of lending power to a movement to limit commercial whaling. Payne also established the nonprofit Ocean Alliance to study and protect whales and their environment. He died June 10 at age 88.
Opera star Grace Bumbry broke the color barrier as the first Black artist to perform at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival, where she sang the role of Venus in composer Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser in 1961. Her casting initially provoked controversy, but her supple mezzo-soprano voice quickly won over critics. (On opening night, she received a 30-minute standing ovation and 42 curtain calls.) After achieving great success in the mezzo range, she shocked the opera world by switching to soprano roles in the 1970s, and thereafter sang roles in both ranges. She opened doors for other Black singers and received the Kennedy Center Award for the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2009. She died May 7 at age 86.
Singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte, born in New York to Jamaican parents, popularized calypso music in the United States during the 1950s and ’60s with his recordings of “Day-O,” “Matilda,” “Jamaica Farewell” and other hit songs. He also starred in numerous films, including Carmen Jones (1954) and Island in the Sun (1957). An ally of Martin Luther King Jr. and other giants of the Civil Rights Movement, Belafonte lobbied against apartheid in South Africa and was the driving force behind the 1985 all-star song “We Are the World,” in support of humanitarian aid to Sudan and Ethiopia. He credited his mother’s advice — “Don’t ever let injustice go unchallenged” — for sparking his activism. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1989, a National Medal of Arts in 1994 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He died April 25 at age 96.
Judith Heumann, known as the “mother of the disability rights movement,” was at the forefront of major demonstrations and helped spearhead the passage of disability rights legislation. A survivor of childhood polio who used a wheelchair for most of her life, she rejected clichés about disabilities, saying: “Disability only becomes a tragedy for me when society fails to provide the things we need to live our lives — job opportunities or barrier-free buildings, for example.” Through her work at the World Bank and as the special adviser for international disability rights at the U.S. Department of State, Heumann championed the centrality of those rights to international development and foreign policy. She died March 4 at age 75.
Jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter was widely acknowledged as one of the most original and creative jazz artists of the last six decades. He worked closely with fellow jazz greats Art Blakey and Miles Davis and co-founded the Weather Report jazz fusion ensemble. A winner of 12 Grammy Awards, Shorter was known for his versatility and imaginative solos on both tenor and soprano saxophones, moving freely from bebop to improvisation. “When you go on stage,” he once told the Washington Post, “you have to put away all your Grammys, your accolades, put away all your newspaper articles. Go out there in your pajamas and tell a story.” Shorter, a 2018 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, died March 2 at age 89.
Songwriter Burt Bacharach crafted more than 70 Top-40 hit songs throughout a lengthy career that began in the 1950s, teaming up with lyricist Hal Davis to create such classics as “I Say a Little Prayer” (sung by Aretha Franklin), “The Look of Love” (sung by Dusty Springfield) and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” which won an Oscar and a Grammy. His collaborations with singer Dionne Warwick yielded a number of enduring hits, including “Walk On By” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” Often cited as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music, Bacharach died February 8 at age 94.