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☆ Laurent Cantet, Whose Films Explored France’s Undersides, Dies at 63
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-05 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Laurent Cantet, an eminent director who made penetrating films about the prickly undersides of French life and society, died on April 25 in Paris. His screenwriter and editor, Robin Campillo, said he died of cancer in a hospital. That ambiguity infuses the film with a rare tension, as a hapless language teacher struggles with his largely immigrant students, trying (with difficulty) to gain their acceptance of the strict rules of the French language, and French identity. In this frank chronicle of classroom life, the students, many of them from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia — bright, sometimes provocative — have the upper hand. Reviewing “The Class” in The New York Times, Manohla Dargis called it “artful, intelligent” and “urgently necessary.”

Persons: Laurent Cantet, Robin Campillo, Cantet’s, Palme, Oscar, Manohla Dargis, “ Organizations: Murs, Cannes Film, The New York Times Locations: Paris, Africa, Caribbean, Asia, The

☆ Maurice El Medioni, Jewish Algerian Pianist, Dies at 95
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Maurice El Medioni, an Algerian-born pianist who fused Jewish and Arab musical traditions into a singular style he called “Pianoriental,” died on March 25 in Israel. His death, at a nursing home in Herzliya, on Israel’s central coast, was confirmed by his manager, Yvonne Kahan. Mr. Medioni was a last representative of a once vibrant Jewish-Arab musical culture that flourished in North Africa before and after World War II and proudly drew from both heritages. In Oran, the Algerian port where he was born, he was sought after by Arabs and Jews alike to play at weddings and at banquets, in the years between the war and 1961, when the threat of violence and Algeria’s new independence from France drove Mr. Medioni and thousands of other Jews to flee.

Persons: Maurice El Medioni, ”, Yvonne Kahan, Medioni Organizations: Mr Locations: Algerian, Israel, Herzliya, North Africa, Oran, France

☆ Anthony Insolia, Who Led the Expansion of Newsday, Dies at 98
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Anthony Insolia, a down-to-earth former editor of Newsday who presided over that Long Island newspaper’s expansion and several big investigative projects, died on Saturday in Philadelphia. His death, in a hospice, was confirmed by his stepdaughter, Robin Ireland. Mr. Insolia was the editor of Newsday from late 1977 until his retirement 10 years later, a period when the newspaper, a tabloid owned then by the Times Mirror Co., won seven Pulitzer Prizes, expanded its foreign reporting staff to multiple far-flung bureaus and solidified its reputation for hard-hitting, streetwise journalism close to home. But it was an undertaking a year before he took charge of Newsday that was among his most significant journalistic accomplishments: what came to be known as the Arizona Project, a pioneering effort in collaborative journalism across many news organizations.

Persons: Anthony Insolia, Robin Ireland, Insolia Organizations: Newsday, Times Mirror Co, Arizona Locations: Long, Philadelphia

☆ Daniel A. Moore, Founder of an African American Museum, Dies at 88
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-29 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Daniel A. Moore Sr., who created a pioneering African American history museum in Atlanta when such initiatives were rare, died on March 4 in Decatur, Ga. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his son Dan Moore Jr.Mr. Moore started his eclectic collection of artifacts in 1978 and in 1984 moved it to a handsome 1910 brick building on Auburn Avenue, known as “Sweet Auburn” for its centrality to African American history. The building, which had been a schoolbook depository and a tire warehouse, was “erected brick by brick by African American masons,” the museum says. Mr. Moore took a longer view, though memories of the civil rights movement were still fresh when he was getting started, with help from a handful of well-off patrons and from Fulton County, which donated the land. Unlike the King Center, his focus was on the whole African American experience, from Africa to the Middle Passage, and from enslavement to the civil rights campaign and beyond.

Persons: Daniel A, Moore, Dan Moore Jr, Martin Luther King Jr Organizations: Auburn, King Center Locations: Atlanta, Decatur , Ga, Auburn, Fulton County, American, Africa

☆ Philippe de Gaulle, Admiral and Son of Charles de Gaulle, Dies at 102
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Adm. Philippe de Gaulle, the oldest child of the French wartime leader and former president Charles de Gaulle, died on Wednesday in Paris. His death was confirmed by the Élysée Palace, the seat of the French presidency. His son Yves told the newspaper Le Figaro that he died “on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday” at the Institution Nationale des Invalides, the historic French veterans hospital in central Paris. The French Navy’s official Twitter account said Admiral de Gaulle died on Wednesday. Admiral de Gaulle spent his life in the shadow of his father, France’s wartime savior and the founder of its Fifth Republic, despite his own illustrious record in the French Resistance and his distinguished military career afterward.

Persons: Philippe de Gaulle, Charles de Gaulle, Yves, Le Figaro, “, de Gaulle, Admiral de Gaulle Organizations: des, French, Fifth, Resistance, Palais Bourbon Locations: Paris, Fifth Republic

☆ Marnia Lazreg, Muslim Scholar Who Critiqued the Veil, Is Dead at 83
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As a young girl growing up in colonial Algeria, Marnia Lazreg was enjoined by her grandmother to wear a veil, to “protect” herself. Ms. Lazreg refused. She didn’t feel the need for such protection, and the veil wouldn’t provide it anyway. The answer she came up with in a collection of five essays, “Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women,” published in 2009, was the same she had given her grandmother so many years before: a firm negative. Her death, in a hospital where she was being treated for cancer, was confirmed by her son Ramsi Woodcock.

Persons: Marnia Lazreg, ”, Lazreg, Ramsi Woodcock Organizations: Hunter College Locations: Algeria, Manhattan

☆ Josette Molland, Who Told of Life in Nazi Camps Through Art, Dies at 100
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the spring of 1943, Josette Molland, a 20-year-old art student, was certain of two things: that she was making a pretty good living creating designs for Lyon’s silk weavers, and that it was unbearable that Germans occupied her country. She joined the Resistance. Fabricating false papers and transporting them for the famed Dutch-Paris underground network unburdened her of guilt. Captured by the Gestapo less than a year later, Ms. Molland lived the hell of Nazi deportation and Nazi camps for women, at Ravensbrück and elsewhere. “I had a happy life for the next 50 years,” Ms. Molland said in a privately published autobiography, “Soif de Vivre” (“Thirst for Life”), in 2016.

Persons: Josette Molland, Molland, “, ” Ms, Vivre, — Locations: Paris, Ravensbrück, France

☆ Riad al-Turk, the ‘Mandela of Syria,’ Dies in Exile at 93
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Riad al-Turk, a veteran Syrian opposition leader known as the “Mandela of Syria” after spending nearly two decades in prison for speaking out against his country’s dictatorial regimes, died on Jan. 1 in Eaubonne, a northern suburb of Paris. Mr. Turk’s death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Khuzama Turk in an interview. Mr. Turk’s life was a dark mirror of his country’s torments, and his improbable survival was testimony to his will to endure. He was imprisoned four times, tortured repeatedly and spent nearly 18 years in solitary confinement, mostly in an underground cell with no windows. “We can say that it was about my height — it was the size of a small elevator,” he said in one of his last interviews.

Persons: Riad, Mandela, Turk’s, Khuzama Turk, Turk, ”, Robin Wright Locations: Syrian, Syria, Eaubonne, Paris, France, Damascus

☆ Robie Harris, Often-Banned Children’s Author, Is Dead at 83
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Robie Harris, a children’s book author and former teacher whose writing about sexuality made her among the most banned authors in America, died on Jan. 6 in Manhattan. Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her sons David and Ben Harris. Ms. Harris’s most well-known book, “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, and Sexual Health” (1994), with its explicit illustrations, has been pulled from library shelves all over the country and has regularly made the American Library Association’s list of Frequently Challenged Children’s Books. The book has been fought over from Virginia to Idaho, with detractors calling it pornography and supporters saying it is merely a frank and honest guide to sexuality for children and teenagers. It is geared for children 10 and up.

Persons: Robie Harris, David, Ben Harris, Ms, Harris’s, “ Organizations: American Locations: America, Manhattan, Virginia, Idaho

☆ Harry Connick Sr., New Orleans D.A. Criticized for Overreach, Dies at 97
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-27 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Harry Connick Sr., a long-serving district attorney in New Orleans whose office gained national notoriety for prosecutorial overreach that eventually resulted in many reversed convictions, died on Thursday at his home in New Orleans. His death was announced by his son, the singer Harry Connick Jr., in a statement. The older Mr. Connick was a singer himself and became locally renowned for his nightclub performances in the French Quarter. But his national reputation as a district attorney was much darker, particularly after a 2011 dissent by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that blasted the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office, under his leadership, for singular incompetence and misconduct. Justice Ginsburg found that Mr. Connick’s subordinates systematically hid evidence that could aid the defense, in violation of the Constitution.

Persons: Harry Connick Sr, prosecutorial, Harry Connick Jr, Connick, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ginsburg, “, Mr Organizations: Supreme, Orleans Parish ” Locations: New Orleans, Orleans Parish

☆ Leon Wildes, Immigration Lawyer Who Defended John Lennon, Dies at 90
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-13 | by ( Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Leon Wildes, a New York immigration lawyer who successfully fought the United States government’s attempt to deport John Lennon, died on Monday in Manhattan. His death, at Lenox Hill Hospital, was confirmed by his son Michael. For more than three years, from early 1972 to the fall of 1975, Mr. Wildes (pronounced WY-ulds) doggedly battled the targeting by the Nixon administration and immigration officials of Mr. Lennon, the former Beatle, and his wife, Yoko Ono, marshaling a series of legal arguments that exposed both political chicanery and a hidden U.S. immigration policy. Uncovering secret records through the Freedom of Information Act, he showed that immigration officials, in practice, can exercise wide discretion in whom they choose to deport, a revelation that continues to resonate in immigration law. And he revealed that Mr. Lennon, an antiwar activist and a vocal critic of President Richard M. Nixon, had been singled out by the White House for political reasons.

Persons: Leon Wildes, John Lennon, Michael, Wildes, doggedly, Nixon, Lennon, Yoko Ono, marshaling, Richard M Organizations: Lenox Hill Hospital, White House Locations: New York, United States, Manhattan, Lenox

☆ Yuri Temirkanov, Conductor Who Celebrated Russia’s Music, Dies at 84
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Adam Nossiter | More About Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To his American associates, Mr. Temirkanov was a mysterious but compelling presence, a visitor from the lost world of the Soviet Union’s last years and a disciple of old modes of music instruction that now barely exist. The Baltimore Sun critic Stephen Wigler noted in 1999 that Mr. Temirkanov “doesn’t own a TV set and doesn’t even know how to drive a car.”He spoke English but hardly used it, and he did not go out of his way to cultivate audiences, though those who knew him in Baltimore said that this was less a sign of aloofness than of shyness. “My back must be to the audience, not to the orchestra,” he told The Sun. And it seems to apply not only to his conducting — which he does without a baton, using circular hand motions that can seem enigmatic to outsiders — but also to his musical tastes and, indeed, to the man in general.”He was known to audiences around the world. Over his career he variously conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, among other ensembles.

Persons: Temirkanov, Stephen Wigler, “, ”, Anne Midgette, Temirkanov’s Organizations: Soviet, Baltimore Sun, Sun, The New York Times, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Locations: Baltimore, Vienna, Dresden, Amsterdam

☆ Don Laughlin, Who Turned a Patch of Desert Into a Casino Mecca, Dies at 92
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Adam Nossiter | More About Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The principal of the one-room schoolhouse he attended for high school was not amused. “He said to get out of the gambling business or get out of high school,” Mr. Laughlin told The Review-Journal. By 1954 he had saved enough to buy a restaurant in North Las Vegas, the 101 Club. But Mr. Laughlin was restless. He learned to fly — it became his passion — and began scouting the state for an alternative to Las Vegas.

Persons: Donald Joseph Laughlin, Raymond, Olive, Donald, “, ” Mr, Laughlin, ‘, — Locations: Laughlin, Owatonna, Minn, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, United States, North Las Vegas, Vegas, Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado

☆ Joe Hill, Swashbuckling South Street Seaport Merchant, Dies at 76
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Adam Nossiter | More About Adam Nossiter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Hill was the “consummate waterfront junk shop-souvenir store, occasionally aspiring to an antique shop,” Mr. Neill said. Mr. Hill opened Captain Hook’s with the Revolution’s Bicentennial in 1976 and remained until the turn of the century, setting up shop “when there was nothing there,” his wife, Trudy Hill, recalled. His other son, Jason, said: “How crazy was it that somebody who flipped items was able to make it to Sands Point? A person who went to garage sales?”At one point Mr. Hill charged 25 cents merely for the privilege of viewing his vast collection of nautical trinkets. But most customers would leave only a little poorer, having been talked into, say, a rubber snake by the persistent Mr. Hill, part huckster and part sincere enthusiast — a “good merchandizer,” Mr. Neill said.

Persons: Hill, Mr, Neill, Hook’s, ”, Trudy Hill, hitched, Matthew said, Jason, — Locations: Fulton, Lower Manhattan, Shore, Sands

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