Famous Celebrities We’ve Lost in 2022

Ray Liotta, actor, 67

(Dec. 18, 1954 — May 26, 2022) Starting out playing what he called “the nicest guy in the world,” Joey on the soap Another World, Liotta won fame as Melanie Griffith’s terrifying jailbird husband in Something Wild (1986), then scored his iconic role, cocaine-addicted gangster Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990). Hill thanked him for making him look good; Liotta replied, “Have you seen the movie?” His career slumped, but after age 50 he earned an Emmy on ER and a Robert Altman Award for Marriage Story (2019). Though he spurned the role of Ralphie on The Sopranos, he starred in its 2021 prequel, The Many Saints of Newark, and was on a career roll in his last years. His posthumous releases will be Apple’s thriller series Black Bird and Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear, inspired by a true story of a bear that ate $15 million worth of cocaine.

Norman Mineta, politician, secretary of transportation, 90

(November 12, 1931 — May 3, 2022) Norman Mineta went from being the son of Japanese immigrants who were interned during World War II to becoming the mayor of his native San Jose, California, a 10-term U.S. congressman and the first Asian American cabinet member. As a member of Congress, Mineta was determined to expand the profile and increase funding for public transportation. Serving presidents on both sides of the aisle, Mineta was briefly commerce secretary during the end of President Bill Clinton’s second term and then was transportation secretary for President George W. Bush. “There is no such thing as a Democratic highway or a Republican bridge,” Mineta was often quoted as saying. It was as head of the Department of Transportation that Mineta made the historic decision on Sept. 11, 2001, to ground all airplanes in U.S. airspace after the second plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. In the wake of the terrorist attack, Mineta spearheaded the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The San Jose airport was named in his honor in 2001, and Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.

Naomi Judd, singer and TV star, 76

(Jan. 11, 1946 — April 30, 2022) A penniless unwed teen mother in Kentucky, Judd became an ICU nurse and then, alongside her daughter Wynonna Judd, an overnight 1980s music star so youthful she was often mistaken for her daughter’s sister. “I was bonked on the head by this fairy godmother, who I consider the fans,” Naomi said. The Judds made 14 No. 1 hits, earning Grammys for “Mama He’s Crazy,” “Grandpa (Tell Me ’Bout the Good Old Days)” and three other tunes. In 1991 she was diagnosed with hepatitis she said she’d contracted as a nurse. “I was on top of the world, selling out arenas. Then I was told I had three stinkin’ years to live.” But she rallied, appearing on Star Search and in 20 shows and films, from Touched by an Angel to An Evergreen Christmas. She penned nine books including Naomi’s Guide to Aging Gratefully and River of Time: My Descent Into Depression and How I Emerged With Hope. She died the day before the Judds’ induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, on the eve of their 2022 reunion tour. She is survived by Wynonna, her actress daughter Ashley Judd and her husband of 32 years, Elvis Presley backup singer Larry Strickland. “Country music lost a true legend,” tweeted Carrie Underwood. “Sing with the angels, Naomi!”

Orrin Hatch, U.S. senator, 88

(March 22, 1934 — April 23, 2022) The longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ever, Orrin Hatch was a political force whom Utah voters elected six times by overwhelming margins. Known for his staunch conservative views, Hatch voted against such measures as the Equal Rights Amendment, and he proposed constitutional amendments to make abortion illegal and to balance the federal budget. Hatch was a prolific legislator, sponsoring or cosponsoring nearly 800 bills that became law. “I’m prepared to be the most hated man in this godforsaken city in order to save this country,” Hatch once declared at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in Washington, D.C. He also was known for his close friendship and collaboration with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Hatch and Kennedy were on the same side in the debate over the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and both helped create the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Hatch also worked with Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on legislation to accelerate the approval process for lower-cost generic drugs. A lifelong Mormon, Hatch was also a missionary in his early life and became a bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.​

Robert Morse, actor, 90

(May 18, 1931 — April 20, 2022) His gap-toothed elfin grin became famous in the 1961 Broadway show and the 1967 movie How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, in which he played a window washer who sang “I Believe in You” to the washroom mirror and rose to be a board member of a major corporation. He appeared in 100 or so plays, films and TV shows until age 89, earning Tony Awards for How to Succeed and his one-man Truman Capote show, Tru, which also earned him an Emmy. He had seven Emmy nominations, most frequently for his role as Don Draper’s socks-wearing boss Bert Cooper on Mad Men. In his dream-sequence finale, Cooper dies while watching the 1969 moon landing, then sings “The Best Things in Life Are Free” to urge Draper to quit fretting and enjoy life while it lasts.

Gilbert Gottfried, comedian, 67

(Feb. 28, 1955 — April 12, 2022) Literally the most distinctive voice in comedy, Gottfried — best known as Aladdin’s crankypants parrot Iago and the Aflac duck — was a raspy, sarcastic buzzsaw of wit silenced by a fatal heart arrhythmia caused by myotonic dystrophy type 2. A stand-up comic who often got fired for fearlessly tasteless jokes, he was in private a stand-up guy with a quiet voice who could imitate any other comic’s voice, and invent a persona “Somewhere between Mark Twain and a birthday clown,” as his friend Dave Attell said. Gottfried was the surreal pitchman who introduced MTV, the funniest Hollywood Squares improviser since Paul Lynde, and a gifted character actor who stole scenes from Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy. He also beat Bob Saget and 99 other comics in a documentary contest to tell the world’s dirtiest joke, The Aristocrats. “It doesn’t get ruder or cruder or better,” said composer Diane Warren. “He could leave you gasping for breath,” said Jon Stewart.

Madeleine Albright, U.S. secretary of state, 84

(May 15, 1937 — March 23, 2022) The first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright went from escaping the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a young girl to advising U.S. presidents, authoring books, teaching college courses and helping shape American foreign policy in the aftermath of the Cold War. Albright was appointed by President Bill Clinton, first as ambassador to the United Nations and then as the 64th secretary of state. Her tenure included a push to expand NATO, advocating for the administration and the alliance to intervene in the Balkans, as well as championing human rights and curtailing nuclear weapons. Even as she battled cancer, Albright continued speaking out, writing an op-ed for The New York Times — just a month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine — in which she warned that such an invasion “would ensure Mr. [Vladimir] Putin’s infamy.” President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and she relished teaching diplomacy at Georgetown University. But Albright had her lighter moments, too. In a 2019 interview with AARP, she talked about her appearance on the television show Madam Secretary. When the show’s producers asked if she would mind if someone played her, she replied: “Yes, I mind. I want to play myself.” Albright was also known for her love of jewelry, and especially oversized pins that gauged her mood. “On good days, I wore flowers and butterflies and balloons,” she told AARP. “And on bad days, a lot of carnivorous animals and spiders and things like that.”​

William Hurt, actor, 71

(March 20, 1950 — March 13, 2022) A Tufts University theology student who studied acting at Juilliard, William Hurt brought an almost religious intensity, intelligence and integrity to his roles, including his 1975 debut opposite Jean Smart in Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Its director made him wear a gorilla suit in The Comedy of Errors, so Hurt quit, drove off in his VW Bug with all his possessions, and became a titanic 1980s film star in Altered States and Body Heat. He would earn an Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Oscar nominations for Children of a Lesser God, Broadcast News and A History of Violence, and Emmy nominations for 2009’s Damages and 2011’s Too Big to Fail. His many supporting roles are as indelible as his star parts, from the scientist in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence to Thaddeus Ross in five Marvel superhero films. He often felt more at home onstage than onscreen, earning an Obie Award and a Tony Award nomination and acting in four plays from 2004–11 in Portland, Oregon. Uneasy about his movie stardom, he said, “I am a character actor in a leading man’s body.”

Sally Kellerman, actress, 84

(June 2, 1937 — Feb. 24, 2022) Though best known as husky-voiced Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, the only Oscar-nominated role in Robert Altman’s 1970 hit M*A*S*H, Kellerman began as a jazz singer who spurned a Verve recording contract as an underconfident teen, and her 1972 and 2009 albums had modest success. But her acting class with future stars Jack Nicholson and James Coburn led to parts on Bonanza, That Girl, the pilot for TV’s original Star Trek, M*A*S*H, Back to School (1986, as a lit prof who charms Rodney Dangerfield by sexily reading Molly Bloom’s soliloquy), Altman’s 1992 comeback hit The Player and The Young and the Restless, which earned her a 2015 Emmy nomination. She said the disrespectful M*A*S*H nude scene that made her famous saved her Hot Lips character from being an uptight military martinet: “She grew up after that ... and started having a really good time.”

Howard Hesseman, actor, 81

​​(Feb. 27, 1940 — Jan. 29, 2022) He played hippies on Dragnet and in Richard Lester’s 1968 film Petulia, but Hesseman will forever be remembered as the laid-back rock DJ Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82), a counterculture icon with cool shades, poor posture and superb taste. A veteran of San Francisco’s hip comedy troupe The Committee, which let Jerry Garcia's then-unknown band use their stage, and was also a real DJ on the city’s pioneering free-form radio station KMPX. Hesseman said it was “fun every day” to play Fever and improvise his intros to the Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett tunes he cued up. A hero to DJs, he said “If it hadn’t been for radio support, I don’t think we would’ve made it through the first season.” Twice Emmy nominated, he played an actor-turned-teacher on ABC’s Head of the Class. His This Is Spinal Tap costar Michael McKean tweeted, “Impossible to overstate Howard Hesseman’s influence on his and subsequent generations of improvisors.” 

Louie Anderson, actor, 68

(March 24, 1953 — Jan. 21, 2022) A counselor for troubled children, Anderson won a 1981 comedy competition hosted by Henny Youngman, who hired him as a writer. His own stand-up act led to vivid parts in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Coming to America, sitcoms and HBO specials, and a job hosting Family Feud. He won an Emmy on his cartoon series Life with Louie, based on his poverty-stricken childhood with 10 siblings and a sweet mother, who also inspired his four books, including The F Word: How to Survive Your Family. He played a therapist on Ally McBeal and The Louie Show and won an Emmy playing a character based on his mom on Baskets. “It felt," he said, “that somehow my mom, from the great beyond, was finally getting herself into show business, where she truly belonged." Comic Dennis Miller defined Anderson’s self-deprecating style as a “Fred Astaire, with a broken leg, approach. Very nimble.”

Meat Loaf, singer/actor, 74

(Sept. 27, 1947 — Jan. 20, 2022) Born Marvin Lee Aday, he performed as Meat Loaf, his violent, alcoholic father’s nickname for him. A stage actor in The Rocky Horror Show in Los Angeles and in Hair on Broadway, he appeared in the Rocky Horror film and over 65 others, including Fight Club and and Wayne’s World. When his planned Peter Pan musical failed to get staged, it became his 1977 debut album, Bat Out of Hell, which became one of history’s top 10-selling albums. The New York Times said Meat Loaf had “enough stage presence to do without spotlights." He said, "I tend to think of myself as the Robert De Niro of rock." He temporarily lost his three-and-a-half-octave voice and confidence after his first success, but his 1993 comeback, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, earned him a Grammy. He sold over 100 million albums. “The vaults of heaven will be ringing with rock," said composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

André Leon Talley, journalist, 73

(Oct. 16, 1948 — Jan. 18, 2022) Talley was raised by his grandmother, a maid at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where students pelted him with rocks when he crossed its campus to buy Vogue magazine. After earning a master’s degree at Brown University on a scholarship, he interned with legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, worked for Andy Warhol's Interview and became Vogue’s creative director under editor Anna Wintour, who depended on his erudition and personal fashion advice. Stylish in prose and in person, he favored billowing caftans and was at least as eye-catching as the runway models he covered. The New York Times likened him to “a gilded Spanish galleon parting the waves.” He befriended Oscar de la Renta, dressed Michelle Obama, advanced Black culture in the fashion world, judged on America’s Top Model and mentored Naomi Campbell. “No one saw the world in a more glamorous way,” said designer Diane von Furstenberg. “The world will be less joyful.”

Ronnie Spector, singer, 78

(Aug. 10, 1943 — Jan. 12, 2022) In 1963, girl groups were goody-goodies. But the Ronettes, led by Veronica Bennett, known as Ronnie Spector, won fame with a tough attitude, beehive hairdos reaching halfway to heaven and the iconic tune “Be My Baby.” The song influenced the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Amy Winehouse and Brian Wilson (he has said he wept when he first heard it), as well as served as inspiration for Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” and Billy Joel’s “Say Goodbye to Hollywood.” As Spector wrote in her memoir, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, she was abused by her alcoholic husband, renowned record producer Phil Spector — who was jailed for murdering an actress four decades later. But Ronnie escaped his influence, collaborated with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Money, and earned a Grammy nomination without Phil’s famous “wall of sound” production. When Keith Richards inducted the Ronettes into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, he commented on Ronnie's "pure, pure voice," adding: “They could sing all their way right through a wall of sound.”

Bob Saget, actor, comedian, 65​

(May 17, 1956 — Jan. 9, 2022) Bob Saget began as the warm-up comic for Tom Hanks’ sitcom Bosom Buddies but became a household name when the show's producer cast him as a widowed dad on Full House (1987-1995). He went on to host America’s Funniest Home Videos and did stand-up comedy noted for humor that was bluer than his clean-cut sitcom persona. His memoir, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian, explained his comedy’s roots in personal tragedy. Four of his siblings died young, and he raised over $25 million to fight scleroderma, which killed his sister at 47 and inspired his 1996 film For Hope. “You couldn't find a nicer or sharper wit than Bob Saget,” said Kathy Griffin. On his final "I Don't Do Negative" comedy tour, he tweeted, “I’m back in comedy like I was when I was 26. I guess I’m finding my new voice and loving every moment of it.”

Sidney Poitier, actor, director, activist, 94

(Feb. 20, 1927 — Jan. 6, 2022) Sidney Poitier grew up in the Bahamas, was penniless when he moved to the U.S. at 15 and later was rejected by the American Negro Theater because of his thick accent. He Americanized himself and became not just a star, but a transformational figure and an activist who risked his neck during the civil rights movement.

Poitier was the first Black man nominated for an Oscar, for 1958’s The Defiant Ones, about two convicts (Poitier and Tony Curtis) escaping in the Deep South while shackled together. His iconic persona as the smartest, noblest guy in the room made him famous. “I felt very much as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made,” he has said. “I made films when the only other Black on the lot was the shoeshine boy.”

In 1964, he became the first Black man to win an Oscar for best actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. His 1967 hits To Sir With Love, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner made him the first Black actor named the number 1 box-office star by theater owners. But being a social symbol stereotyped him, so he changed gears and also became a skilled director of comedies (Buck and the Preacher, Uptown Saturday Night, Stir Crazy) as well as a comic actor (Sneakers). ​When Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, the president said, “Sidney Poitier does not make movies. He makes milestones. Milestones of artistic excellence. Milestones of America’s progress.”

Peter Bogdanovich, director, actor, film historian, 82

(July 30, 1939 — Jan. 6, 2022) Trained by famed acting teacher Stella Adler at 16, Bogdanovich directed and starred in a Clifford Odets play at 20, and wrote passionate, erudite essays on classic Hollywood luminaries for the Museum of Modern Art and Esquire in the early 1960s. A chance meeting with drive-in movie producer Roger Corman got him a job rewriting the Peter Fonda biker film The Wild Angels, Corman’s biggest hit. Bogdanovich’s second directing effort, 1971’s The Last Picture Show, earned eight Oscar nominations, ignited the careers of Cloris Leachman, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, and made him a Hollywood wunderkind often compared to the young Orson Welles, his mentor and friend. After his hits What’s Up, Doc? and Paper Moon — which were love letters to Old Hollywood, like most of his best work — a string of flops ended his hot streak, and his life derailed after the 1981 murder of his They All Laughed star and girlfriend Dorothy Stratten. Despite bankruptcies and illness, he bounced back, directing Cher’s 1985 film Mask and 2001’s Cat’s Meow, starring Kirsten Dunst as William Randolph Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies. In 2018, he brought Orson Welles’ last film The Other Side of the Wind, starring both of them, to the screen. Younger viewers know him best as Dr. Kupferberg, the psychiatrist of Tony’s psychiatrist Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) on The Sopranos. His books on directors (Who the Hell Made It) and stars (Who the Hell’s in It) will last as long as his movies. “He birthed masterpieces as a director,” said director Guillermo del Toro, “and enshrined the lives and work of more classic filmmakers than almost anyone else in his generation.”