British artist and cartoonist Ronald Searle died on December 30 at age 91 at his home in southern France. Best known as the creator of the "St. Trinian's School" series, and illustrator of the "Molesworth" books, Searle was revered as one of the greatest British graphic artists. Celeste Headlee remembers Searle's life and career.

Along with "supreme leader" and "our Father," Kim Jong-Il was also known as "Dear Leader." And certainly, there were few tyrants that satirists dearly loved lampooning more than the self-loving, eccentric late dictator. From "co-starring" as the singing antagonist in "Team America: World Police" to being portrayed as a wife-abducting weatherman on "30 Rock," Kim Jong-il's legacy is in large part an absurd one. Celeste Headlee remembers one of the world's most eccentric evil dictators.

Only writer, commentator, contrarian, public intellectual, and noted atheist Christopher Hitchens knows now whether he has indeed gone off to some grim North Korea in the sky. Hitchens, who once imagined the idea of an afterlife as "like living in North Korea," died Thursday in Houston at age 62. The cause was complications from esophageal cancer, which he was diagnosed with while promoting his memoir "Hitch-22" in 2010. A brilliant essayist and author of polemics that took on Henry Kissinger, Mother Theresa, and organized religion, Hitchens remained defiant until the end.

Character actor Harry Morgan died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles. In a career that spanned over a hundred movies and numerous television shows, Morgan was best known to audiences for his definitive role as Colonel Sherman T. Potter in the long-running series "M*A*S*H." Morgan was 96, and had recently been treated for pneumonia.

Joe Frazier, the heavyweight boxing champion who gave Muhammad Ali his first loss, died Monday night at age 67. A representative said he had liver cancer. Between 1968 and 1973, Frazier won 32 fights — 27 of them by knockouts. In March 1971, Frazier became the undisputed heavyweight champion when he beat Ali in a 15 round decision in what was known as the Fight of the Century. John Hockenberry remembers the champ's life and career.

Writer and poet Piri Thomas, whose 1967 memoir "Down These Mean Streets" authentically portayed the brutality, racism, and hardship faced by Puerto Ricans in America's urban ghettos, died on Monday. He was 83 years old. Thomas was born in Harlem, and his memoir went on to become a staple of high school reading lists.

Norman Corwin, whose 70-year-career as a writer made him a legend in the world of radio, died on Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 101. Corwin wrote, directed, and produced for radio, television, film, and the stage. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his script "Lust for Life," a 1956 biopic about Vincent Van Gogh. During the "Golden Age of Radio" in the 1940s, Corwin was a prolific producer, working in every genre. Two of his radio works, "We Hold These Truths," a 1941 documentary about the Bill of Rights that aired after Pearl Harbor, and "On a Note of Triumph," a 1945 piece that aired on VE Day in 1945, are considered masterpieces of the medium. Corwin remained a writer-in-residence at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

Italian opera singer Salvatore Licitra died today at 43, nine days after suffering severe injuries in a scooter accident in Sicily. Licitra was regarded as the greatest tenor since Luciano Pavarotti. Celeste Headlee remembers his storied career and stunning voice.

Chicago bluesman David "Honeyboy" Edwards died on Monday. He was 96. Edwards was believed to be the oldest member of a generation of Delta blues players like Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Big Joe Williams. Our partner the BBC prepared this segment, where Edwards, in his own words, recounts his life, and reflects on his legacy.

Gil Scott-Heron, a Chicago-born poet who many called the "Godfather of Rap," died Friday, at the age of 62. Scott-Heron was a musical innovator, whose spoken-word-over-jazz 1970 debut album "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox," is often credited as year zero of rap music. The record featured songs like "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which, along with many other Scott-Heron compositions, became heavily sampled and referenced in music that came afterward. The musician and writer often said the accolades were misguided, and preferred to call himself a "bluesologist." 

Composer John Barry wrote the score for eleven James Bond films, transforming the music into one of the most iconic pieces of film music ever written. Barry died Sunday of a heart attack. Barry's mother was a classical pianist and his father owned several movie theaters. "I never sat down at any given moment and said, 'this is what i want to be.' It just kind of grew out of my environment in the cinema and taking music lessons and loving music," Barry told the BBC.

Pianist and composer Billy Taylor died of heart failure on Tuesday, at the age of 89. The award-winning jazz advocate and scholar is recognized for penning compelling commentary in his jazz compositions during the civil rights era. But he's also known for being a giant in the teaching world of jazz — literally putting some of his peers on a truck and taking them around New York City to perform and teach the world that jazz is America’s classical music.

George Packer, staff writer for The New Yorker, knew Richard Holbrooke not only through his reporting but through many conversations with the diplomatic titan. Packer was supposed to have dinner with Holbrooke this Friday, and joins us now to remember not only Holbrook's impressive career, but his personality and his humor.    

Nestor Kirchner, former Argentine president and husband to Argentina’s current leader, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, died suddenly of a heart attack Wednesday. He was 60 years old. Kirchner served as president from 2003-2007, and pulled Argentina out of severe economic crisis. He also encouraged judicial changes that brought hundreds of dictatorship-era figures who had previously benefited from an amnesty to trial. While his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the presidential election in 2007, analysts say Nestor was the power behind the throne and expected him to run in the up-coming election in 2011.

Paul Miller was an accomplished law professor, graduate of Harvard Law, and advisor and liaison to the Clinton and Obama administrations on disability issues. He accomplished all this and overcame his own disability to become an expert on the intersection of disability law, employment discrimination and genetic science. 

Benoit Mandelbrot died last week. As a mathematician he may have as much impact as any number cruncher since maybe Euclid, who gave us regular old geometry, or Charles Babbage, who laid the groundwork for the modern computer, or folks like Euler and Hilbert and Gauss just famous monster geniuses of numbers. Mandelbrot’s genius was in having the vision to fuse a simple abstract notion about geometry with the power of the computer. Good old Euclid shows us how lines and points and surfaces behave in space and the immutable laws that seem to keep them in a state of perpetual orderliness. Mandelbrot thinks of mathematical objects as having a history. They are the product of millions of calculations that determine their size and space. Shapes, for instance, are histories of repeated computations that together constitute complex surfaces or they replicate complex processes like life itself. Mandelbrot’s fractals are capable of modeling all kinds of complicated phenomena. They are the key to creating simulations with rich computer graphics so essential for everything from video games to movie special effects to weather and planetary scale climate simulators. (READ MORE)

Solomon Burke, the larger-than-life soul and gospel singer, died Sunday at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam while on his way to a concert. Since being crowned "the King of Rock and Soul" by a radio D.J. in the 1960s, Burke was known to perform in full royal garb—crown, scepter, and robe—while sitting atop a throne.  Burke was 70 years old. John and Celeste remember "King Solomon"s amazing 50 year career.

Another Old Hollywood star has faded this morning. Iconic actor Tony Curtis, who appeared in over 100 movies during his storied career, is dead this morning at 85. John and Celeste remember this legend and his remarkable life.

Listen to an interview with Tony Curtis on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show.

Mitch Miller is best known as the man with the well trimmed moustache and goatee, conducting a chorus of men singing familiar old songs.  Miller hosted "Sing Along With Mitch," in the early '60s. He died yesterday at the age of 99. What many people didn't realize, was how influential a role Miller played in the music industry as a producer.

"He invented the modern pop record," music historian, Elijah Wald says. "He realized that records were not just ways of preserving, but that records were like movies."

American Beat poet, author, cartoonist and musician Tuli Kupferberg died this week at the age of 86. Although Kupferberg wasn't a household name, his band, The Fugs, ran in the same circles as The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa and the "Mothers of Invention."