TIME Magazine TIME In Memoriam 2023

WRITER B. 1936 | Edith Pearlman won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in 1996 for her short story collection, Vaquita and Other Stories, but she didn’t rise to literary fame until she became a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award at age 74 for Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories. Throughout her career that spanned over four decades, she published more than 250 works of short fiction and nonfiction in magazines, journals, anthologies, and online. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Pearlman made New England her home and died on January 1 in Brookline, Massachusetts, at the age of 86.…

ASTRONAUT B. 1932 | The former astronaut, physicist, fighter pilot, and entrepreneur died in Houston on January 3 at age 90. Cunningham was the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 7 mission, the first crewed flight of NASA’s Apollo program. He received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and he was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame, International Space Hall of Fame, Iowa Aviation Hall of Fame, San Diego Air and Space Museum Hall of Fame, and Houston Hall of Fame. In 1977, he published the book, The All-American Boys, a candid memoir about his experience in the space industry.…

WRITER B. 1931 | English writer and feminist Fay Weldon, best known for her 1983 novel, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which was adapted for a BBC miniseries and a Hollywood movie, died in Northampton, England, on January 4 at age 91. Her provocative views, including that art should not be made separate from commerce, made her no stranger to controversy—in 2000, she published The Bulgari Connection, a novel that was commissioned by the Italian jeweler Bulgari, and critics called her a sellout. When TIME asked her about it in 2001, she said, “Writers understand that you write for money, which many other people don’t.”…

TAP DANCER B. 1925 | Arthur Duncan started tap dancing as an adolescent and toured in Europe for several years before making his TV debut on The Betty White Show in 1954 as racial tensions in the South were boiling. White resisted demands that Duncan be removed from the show because he was Black, famously saying, “Live with it.” According to the American Tap Dance Foundation, Duncan’s “seamless blend of song and dance continues to make a significant contribution to the artistic legacy of dance and entertainment.” The Chicago National Association of Dance Masters presented Duncan with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He died on January 4 at age 97.…

BASEBALL PLAYER & COACH B. 1948 | Campbell, nicknamed “Soup” after the Campbell Soup Co., was a Major League Baseball relief pitcher and coach. He started his career with the Minnesota Twins in 1973, and moved to the Boston Red Sox in 1976. While with the Red Sox, he was named Rolaids Relief Man of the Year in 1976 and 1977 and made the 1977 All-Star team. He later played with the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Detroit Tigers, and the Montreal Expos. He also coached for the Milwaukee Brewers and several minor league teams. Campbell died in Palatine, Illinois, on January 6. He was 74.…

TENNIS CHAMPION B. 1927 | In 1951, Dick Savitt won the Australian and Wimbledon men’s singles tennis championships when he was just 24. He was the subject of the TIME cover story in August that year, which included the following description of his play: “he smashed serves, laced backhands down the alley and crosscourt, whaled deep forehands to the corners.” Before Savitt’s tennis career took off, he attended Cornell University on a basketball scholarship and earned a degree in economics. After retiring from tennis, he worked in the oil industry and as an investment banker. He died on January 6 in Manhattan at age 95. ‘If I am on my game, nobody can beat me … The others are coming uphill to me … I’m the man to beat.’Savitt…