Pictures: Notable deaths from 2014
English rock and blues singer and musician Joe Cocker, seen here February 2013 in Berlin, died Dec. 22. (Andreas Rentz / Getty Images)
The author of more than a dozen books of poetry and several works of prose, Strand was a Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate widely praised for his concentrated, elegiac verse. He was 80. (Chris Felver / Getty Images)
Saxophone player Bobby Keys, during the soundcheck for the first night of the Rolling Stones’ 1973 European World Tour, Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria, 1st September 1973. (Michael Putland / Getty Images)
Keyboardist Ian McLagan, second left, who was the keyboardist in rock bands Small Faces and ‘The Faces died on Dec. 3 at 69. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
Marion Barry died Nov. 23 at age 78 in Washington, D.C. The cause of death was not initially disclosed. (Tim Sloan, AFP/Getty Images)
Director Mike Nichols, known for a prolific career on stage, screen and television, died at age 83. His film credits include “The Graduate” and “The Birdcage.” He is pictured with his wife, news anchor Diane Sawyer. (Eduardo Munoz / Reuters)
Sugarhill Gang recording artists David ‘Davey D’ Gunthorpe (L-R) Michael ‘Wonder Mike’ Wright, Joey ‘Master Gee’ Robinson and Henry ‘Big Bank Hank’ Jackson in 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jackson died Nov. 11, 2014 at the age of 57 after battling cancer. (Isaac Brekken / WireImage)
Ian Fraser, right, whose 11 Emmy Awards and 21 additional nominations made him the most-honored musician in television history, died of complications from cancer on Oct. 31 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times)
Musician Tim Hauser (left) of The Manhattan Transfer died October 16, 2014. He was 72. (L-R) Tim Hauser of The Manhattan Transfer, Solomon Burke, and Alan Paul of The Manhattan Transfer attend the GRAMMY’s Salute to Jazz at the GRAMMY Museum on January 26, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images)
“August: Osage County” actress Misty Upham, was best known for her role in the 2008 film Frozen River, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Upham was 32. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier speaks at a news conference in 2011, the year he returned from exile. He died Oct. 4 in Port-au-Prince at the age of 63. (Hector Retamal / AFP/Getty Images)
Richard Kiel portrayed Jaws, a murderous giant with a mouthful of deadly steel teeth, in a scene from the James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977). Kiel died on Sept. 10 at age 74. (United Artists / Getty Images)
Chick-fil-A founder and Chairman S.Truett Cathy, seen here in 2012, died at his home Sept. 8, 2014, at the age of 93. (Jim Watson, AFP/Getty Images)
The respected British actor and Academy Award-winning director of “Gandhi,” the multiple-Oscar-winning best picture of 1982, was known as a “socially engaged” filmmaker who often focused on major historical figures. He was 90. (Larry Davis / Los Angeles Times)
The Indian guru was one of the West’s most influential teachers of yoga. He helped lay the foundation for its explosive growth and attained rock-star status with tens of thousands of followers. He was 95. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Legendary “Saturday Night Live” announcer Don Pardo died Aug. 18 at age 96. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
Lauren Bacall in 1944. The screen icon died at age 89. (FPG / Getty Images)
Oscar-winning actor and comic Robin Williams died August 11, 2014 of an apparent suicide. He was 63. (Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images)
Veteran soap opera actor, Charles Keating, has died at the age of 72. He had been fighting cancer. Here, Keating attends the 23rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on May 22, 1996 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. (Ron Galella / WireImage)
James Brady, the former presidential press secretary who was seriously wounded in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981, died Aug. 4. He was 73.
(Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)Singer Michael Johns, a former ‘American Idol’ finalist, died on August 1, 2014. He was 35 years old. (Jason Merritt / Getty Images)
Van Kirk was the last surviving crew member of the Enola Gay, which dropped the first nuclear bomb in the history of warfare over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. He was 93. (Bita Honavar / EPA)
The groundbreaking Soviet foreign minister later became the president of an independent Georgia. In the final years of the Soviet Union, he helped topple the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War. He was 86. (AFP / Getty Images)
James Garner, known for his roles in the television series “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files,” died July 19 of natural causes in Los Angeles. (MYCHELE DANIAU / AFP/Getty Images)
Actress Skye McCole Bartusiak, best known for her role as the daughter of Mel Gibson’s character’s in the 2000 hit movie “The Patriot,” died July 19 at the age of 21. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images)
Elaine Stritch, shown in March 2003, became a signal interpreter of songs by Noel Coward and Stephen Sondheim. She died at age 89. (Ari Mintz / For the Times)
Eileen Ford, who co-founded Ford Models with her husband, reportedly died July 9, 2014 after having recently suffered a fall. She was 92. (Brad Barket / Getty Images)
Charlie Haden, the pioneering jazz bassist who played with the likes of Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett before enjoying a decades-long solo career, died Friday at age 76 of a prolonged illness, according to his label, ECM. (David Livingston / Getty Images)
Louis Brown Jr. (left), father of Nicole Brown Simpson, died Saturday (July 5) at 90 years old. The Nicole Brown Simpson murder trial was heavily featured on TV throughout 1995, before retired football player O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the crime. He was later found liable in a civil trial. (RICK MEYER / AFP/Getty Images)
The Oscar-nominated writer-director excelled at mining the urban middle class for laughs as well as tears in such movies as “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” and “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” He was 84. (Christina House / For The Times)
Louis Zamperini, a World War II prisoner of war and Olympic runner, has died at 97. He was the subject of the book and upcoming film ‘Unbroken.’ (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Soul singer Bobby Womack died on June 27, 2014. He was suffering from colon cancer and diabetes at the time of his death. He was 70 years old. (Ian Gavan / Getty Images for Guinness)
Veteran actor Eli Wallach, who turns 95 on Dec. 7, 2010, will be presented with an honorary Oscar. Wallach lives in
Lyricist Gerry Goffin, who co-wrote some of the biggest hit songs of the 1960s with his former wife and longtime collaborator Carole King, died on June 19, 2014 at age 75, King said. (Fred Prouser / Reuters )
Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn died June 16, 2014 after battling cancer. He was 54. (Donald Miralle / Getty Images)
Comedian Rik Mayall is dead at age 56. (Stuart C. Wilson / Getty Images)
During World War II, Nez was part of a top-secret group that became known as the Navajo code talkers. Using the Navajo language, they developed an unbreakable military communications code. He was 93. (Jake Schoellkopf / For The Times)
The biochemist in 1976 synthesized a psychedelic drug that was later called Ecstasy. He was 88. (Bob Carey / Los Angeles Times)
Lewis Katz, 72, the co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper and former owner of the New Jersey Nets and New Jersey Devils, was among seven people killed when a private jet caught fire and crashed on June 1. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
Poet and author Maya Angelou died at age 86 on May 28, 2014.
(Neilson Barnard / Getty Images)Director Malik Bendjelloul attends the “Searching for Sugar Man” Greenroom Photo Op during the 2012 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival. (Michael Buckner / Getty Images for SXSW)
Ex-boxing champion Jimmy Ellis, seen here in 1966, died on May 7, 2014, at the age of 74. He was a onetime sparring partner for Muhammad Ali. (Central Press / Getty Images)
Actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. of “The F.B.I.” and “77 Sunset Strip” died on May 2, 2014 at his ranch in Solvang, California. He was 95 years old. (Vince Bucci / Getty Images)
Bob Hoskins arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of “Mrs Henderson Presents” at the Fine Arts theatre in Beverly Hills. He died at 71. (Mario Anzuoni / Reuters)
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez died on April 17 at his home in Mexico City. The author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was 87. (Ronaldo Schemidt, AFP/Getty Images)
Peaches Geldof, daughter of Bob Geldof, has died at her home in Kent, southern England, aged 25, British media reported on April 7, 2014. (LUKE MACGREGOR / REUTERS)
Mickey Rooney, who became the United States’ biggest movie star as a teenager in the 1930s and later a versatile character actor in a career that spanned 10 decades, died on April 6 at age 93. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Peter Matthiessen, novelist, naturalist, and wilderness writer, died on April 5 at age 86. Prior to his death, Matthiessen was treated for acute leukemia for more than a year. (Linda Girvin/Handout)
John Pinette, a stand-up comedian who guest-starred as the victim of a carjacking in the final episode of the TV show “Seinfeld,” died at age 50 of natural causes on April 6. (Rick Diamond /Getty Images)
Often called the “godfather” of house music, Frankie Knuckles was instrumental in launching the electronic dance music movement in the late 1970s. He was 59. Full obituary
Notable deaths of 2013 (Derren Nugent / McClatchy-Tribune)
Charles Keating Jr, a banker who played a leading role in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s that embroiled five U.S. senators, died at 90 in Phoenix. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Fred Phelps Sr., the founder of a controversial fundamentalist church that advanced its anti-gay agenda by picketing military funerals and political events, died at the age of 84 on March 20. ( The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Fashion designer L’Wren Scott was found dead in her New York apartment on March 17 from an apparent suicide, according to a law enforcement official. She was 47. (Michael Kovac / Getty Images for Banana Republic)
Veteran former Labour MP Tony Benn, the stalwart totem of the British left who spearheaded the movement against the Iraq war, died on March 14 at the age of 88. (Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images)
Former Florida Governor Reubin Askew, pictured here taking the oath of office in Tallahassee, Fla. in 1971, died on March 13 at age 85. Askew was known as a champion of tax reform and open government who became a pivotal figure in Florida politics. (Handout / Reuters)
Jim Lange, the first host of the popular game show “The Dating Game,” died on Feb. 25 at 81. (ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images)
Widely thought to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, Herz-Sommer played piano while imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. She is the subject of “The Lady in Number 6,” a 38-minute documentary in contention for an Academy Award. She was 110. Full obituary
Notable deaths of 2013 (Bunbury Films / EPA)
Maria von Trapp, a member of the Austrian family whose escape from Nazi Germany and subsequent musical career inspired the famed musical ‘The Sound of Music,’ has died at the age of 99. (Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)
Garrick Utley, an NBC News as a foreign correspondent, weekend anchor, morning-show host and moderator of “Meet the Press” died of prostate cancer Feb. 20, 2014 at his home in New York. (NBC NewsWire / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
Devo members inside the Mutato Studios in Hollywood. (L to R)Josh Freese, Bob Mothersbaugh, Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Bob Casale. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Veteran comedian Sid Caesar, star of the 1950s television classic “Your Show of Shows,” died on Feb. 12 at age 91. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)
Iconic child star Shirley Temple, pictured here in 1934 at age 6, passed away on Feb. 11. She was 85. (Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his apartment in New York City on February 2. (Max Rossi/Reuters)
Austrian actor Maximilian Schell, 83, whose portrayal of a defense attorney in the 1961 drama “Judgment at Nuremberg” earned him an Academy Award, died Friday in a hospital in Innsbruck, according to his agent Patricia Baumbauer. He was 83. (Alfred Assmann / EPA /January 1, 1961)
Anna Gordy Gaye, the former wife of singer Marvin Gaye and sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., died in Los Angeles on January 31 at the age of 92, the family publicist said. The songwriter and businesswoman was married to Gaye from 1964 to 1977 and helped compose two songs, “Flying High (In the Friendly Sky)” and “God is Love,” on Gaye’s classic album “What’s Going On.” (Handout/Reuters)
Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, a former director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, died on January 20 after a long illness. He was 80. (Riccardo Musacchio/EPA)
Actor Dave Madden, pictured here while on “The Partridge Family” in 1973, died on January 16 at 82. (ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images)
illionaire businessman and philanthropist Edgar Bronfman, the chairman of the Seagram Company and long-serving president of the World Jewish Congress, died at his New York home at age 84. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon died on January 11 at age 85, eight years after he had suffered from a severe stroke. (Jim Hollander / EPA)
Larry Speakes, who served as spokesman for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987, died on January 10 at age 74. (Stephen Jaffe/AFP/Getty Images)
Hong Kong film magnate Run Run Shaw, who built the Shaw Bros. studio into the largest in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, popularized the kung fu genre around the world and later became a major philanthropist, died January 7 at 106. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)
Country singer Ray Price, whose 1956 hit “Crazy Arms” helped revolutionize the sound of country music in the 1950s, died on Dec. 16 at his home in Mount Pleasant, Texas, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 87. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
Irish actor Peter O’Toole died on Dec. 14. The “Lawrence of Arabia” star was 81. (Chris Ball / Getty Images)
Jazz guitarist Jim Hall died in his sleep December 10, 2013 at the age of 83. (Douglas Mason / Getty Images)
Paul Walker, star of the “Fast and Furious” series of films, was killed in a car crash at age 40. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
Psychic medium and author Sylvia Browne speaks to the audience during an appearance in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2010. She died at age 77. (Steve Snowden / Getty Images)
Nobel Scientist Frederick Sanger has died aged 95. Sanger was an English biochemist and double Nobel prize winner. (Keystone / Getty Images)
Diane Disney Miller, daughter of Walt Disney, died at age 79. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)
Syd Field, the “guru of all screenwriters,” died on Nov. 17 at the age of 77. Field authored “Screenplay: The Basics of Film Writing,” which is credited with helping establish the now traditional three-act structure for feature film scripts. (SydField.com/Handout)
Doris Lessing after winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 2007. (Richard Lewis / EPA)
Former Carolina Panthers president and Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Mike McCormack died on Nov. 15. He was 83 years old. (George Rose / Getty Images)