People

After making their first appearance in Toronto in 1961, Salome settled there in 1964 and began playing the jazz club circuit, soon earning the sobriquet that would be with her the rest of her life: “Canada’s First Lady of the Blues.” – CBC

David Mikics’s “Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker” is a cool, cerebral book about a cool, cerebral talent. This is not a full-dress biography — there have been several of Kubrick — but a brisk study of his films, with enough of the life tucked in to add context as well as brightness and bite. – The New York Times

“The other day, my pal, the brilliant songwriter Tom Kitt, called me. He said he was frustrated by his lack of creativity because of the pandemic and was reaching out to several friends to see if we could write songs together. He said, “Is there something going on in your life at the moment that you just have to express?” And I sat at my computer and wrote the following: “The question we keep asking is how do you have hope when every moment is a struggle? When every second is a reminder.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Carver, one of Canada’s great stage actors, “was an artist who demanded the most from himself, opening up his heart to reveal the pain and beauty of life. He was an inspiration to everyone who knew him.” – CBC

Grau, who won the 1965 prize for her fourth book, The Keeper of the House, wrote “stories and novels [that] told of both the dark secrets and the beauty of the Deep South.” – Los Angeles Times (AP)

Soria was the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and former editor of the Italian news weekly L’Espresso. He began his second term as president of the press association in 2019. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch (AP)

A central figure in the rise of classical music in the city, Henry supported numerous arts organizations including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, the Colburn School, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Camerata Pacifica and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. – Los Angeles Times

“In addition to their pioneering role as women on the jazz circuit, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were an interracial band in the era of Jim Crow. Their extensive itinerary through the South, where they traveled by sleeper bus, reportedly inspired jazz piano giant Earl Hines to call them ‘the first Freedom Riders.’ They also toured Europe, playing in occupied Germany for American soldiers — both white and Black, though not at the same time.” (After the band broke up in 1949, Woods, who was biracial, joined the Omaha Symphony — and was fired after her first concert when management saw her Black father pick her up.) – WBGO (Newark, NJ)

The truth of Fleisher is in his own questions, his dogged pursuit of answers (from spiritual healers to experimental treatments) is more interesting than the answer itself. You can’t help but listen to “Two Hands” (the title itself suggestive of juxtaposition; a distant cousin of “on the one hand…”) without hearing simply the music. It’s about the truth behind it. To quote Fleisher, “You will never get the answer until you listen to what you do, and ‘til you really hear the music and make a decision, make a choice for what you want to hear, for what you think the music is saying. It’s all so much more in your hands than you think.” – Van

“[He] was among that select breed of scholar who moves easily between academic and public spheres. His criticism found its way into classroom syllabuses and general-interest magazines. And more than dissecting others’ plays, he also wrote his own and had some success as a director. He adapted work by many of the European playwrights he prized, especially Bertolt Brecht, whom he first met in Los Angeles in 1942.” – The New York Times

Far from his native Kurdish village, escaped from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, now released from the Australian internment camp in Papua New Guinea where he wrote his award-winning No Friend but the Mountains on a cell phone, Behrouz Boochani has received asylum in New Zealand and is settled in safe, pretty, tranquil Christchurch, where most Kiwis seem thrilled to have him. It’s driving him a little nuts. – The New York Times Magazine

Peter Marks: “Some people warn that you enter the bilious environs of social media at your peril. But I say, power up your device and be Zen about whatever transpires. Because you just might innocently scroll down one morning and end up with an honorary doctorate in hairdressing from a large chain of salons in Ireland.” – The Washington Post

“[He] became a celebrated reporter, columnist and the top editor of The New York Post and The Daily News; a foreign correspondent for The Post and The Saturday Evening Post; and a writer for New York Newsday, The Village Voice, Esquire and other publications. He wrote a score of books, mostly novels but also biographies, collections of short stories and essays, and screenplays, some adapted from his books.” – The New York Times

In 1761, at roughly age 7, the girl who would become Phillis Wheatley was taken from Africa to Boston and sold to the wife of a local merchant who educated her. Within a dozen years, she had published a book of verse in London and become perhaps the most famous Black person in the British Empire as well as a symbol for anti-slavery campaigners. Until recently, though, we knew her life story only through a tendentious memoir, written well after her death, by a woman who claimed to be a relative of her mistress. – The New Yorker

Among the many important titles he midwifed over a long career at Dial, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Little Brown were James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and The Fire Next Time, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, Seymour Hersh’s The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, and Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. – The New York Times

He remained, in critical estimation, a pianist of sublime musical intelligence whether playing with one hand or two. But he also gained renown off the stage as a conductor and an influential teacher. – Washington Post

Víctor’s hit was the 1991 “Mesita de la Noche,” but before that, his son says, the Dominican singer/songwriter/producer had “lived a double life. … He was writing romantic songs and being an artist, but he was also part of the underground political movement” opposed to dictator Rafael Trujillo. – The New York Times

Burrows is an actor, playwright, producer, and activist who started her career as a kid on a radio show. In 1968, she was favorably written about in The New York Times, and she says, “It put me in another tax bracket. I remember being in Algiers at a festival. Why was someone in Algiers talking about me? He knew me because he had read the Times article about me. The Times review can put you in another tax bracket, even today.” – American Theatre

Fleisher famously spent 30 years mastering piano’s left-handed repertoire after an injury to his right hand – and then reintegrated his right hand when it recovered after three decades. “Fleisher often pointed out after his comeback that he was not, and never would be, fully cured. But he also acknowledged, late in life, that the incapacitation of his right hand in 1964 ultimately gave him a far more varied musical life than he might have had if he had been able to pursue a conventional career as a virtuoso pianist.” – The New York Times

Eusebio Leal Spengler so loved the old city that he found ways to save it. “Never a priority in the 20th century, old Havana fell into disrepair. By befriending Fidel Castro, Leal began the process of bringing it back. He managed to get the old town designated a Unesco world heritage site, and then gather enough money from Europe to start putting the buildings back together.” (Spengler died on July 31.) – The Observer (UK)

The actor excelled at playing cantankerous characters but came to fame playing an assistant engineer at a nuclear plant in The China Syndrome. Later, he became famous for his spokesperson roles, not to mention his (very) lively Twitter presence. – The New York Times

He was nominated for the best-director Oscar for the 1978 film “Midnight Express” and again 10 years later for “Mississippi Burning.” – The New York Times

“Because he was not a celebrity editor, he was not particularly well known outside the publishing universe. But let us assure you, because we saw it firsthand: There was nobody quite like him. A disproportionate number of the best things you ever read in New York came through his hands. .. We’ve invited his colleagues at New York, past and present, to talk about him. Here’s John in their words.” (And here’s a similar piece from his colleagues at Vanity Fair.) – New York Magazine

“Mr. Schonfeld, who had been expelled from Harvard Law School for gambling, was nothing if not a risk taker. Early in his career he produced newsreels shown in movie theaters, and by the mid-1970s he was running an agency that provided news programming to independent television stations. In that role he met [Ted] Turner, a brash sailor, sports-team owner and cable TV entrepreneur who was looking to make a bigger name for himself.” – The Washington Post

“In both the manifold building blocks of his works and their titles — Ba-O-Ba, Ju-Ju, Palm Saw Tooth Blatt, Bison Bop — Mr. Sonnier came off at times as an irreverent sensualist alongside peers like Bruce Nauman, Eva Hesse, Jackie Winsor and Robert Smithson, who employed some of the same materials.” – The New York Times

In 2014, he secured $17 million from Mrs. O’Donnell to create the institute of art history. In 2017, UTD partnered with the late Margaret McDermott to create the Richard Brettell Award in the Arts, which, every other year, bestows $150,000 upon an artist “whose body of work demonstrates a lifetime of achievement in their field.” – Dallas Morning News

If you’re somehow not familiar with the name, Bob Ross is probably America’s most famous painter. With his distinctive hair, gentle voice, and signature expressions like “happy little trees,” he’s an enduring icon. Even 25 years after his death, he’s popular not only with viewers who remember him fondly, but also with kids who weren’t even born when his show was originally on the air. – The Atlantic

While a student in Moscow in the late ’60s, he became passionately interested in William Blake, going on to translate his complete works into Russian and write the first Russian-language biography of Blake. The great English mystic became the dominant force in Smirnov’s music as well, with more than 50 of his compositions being based on or inspired by Blake. – The Guardian

Doug Shipman said he informed the Woodruff in February of his intentions to leave after three years of leading the organization. The Woodruff Arts Center is Atlanta’s foundational arts organization, overseeing the High Museum of Art, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre. It is the third-largest arts center in the United States. Shipman said he wants to be more directly involved in addressing injustices of the past and present. “I do not know exactly what pathway I will take, and I will need friends to help me navigate the road ahead,” he said. – ArtsATL