>>Notable deaths of 2017. 

Jake LaMotta, 1921-2017: Jake LaMotta, an iron-fisted battler who brawled his way to a middleweight title and was later memorialized by Robert De Niro in the film “Raging Bull,” died Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. He was 95.

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Stanton, the shambling, craggy-face character actor with the deadpan voice who became a cult favorite through his memorable turns in “Paris, Texas,” “Repo Man” and many other films and TV shows, died Friday, Sept. 15, 2017, at age 91.

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Gene Michael, 1938-2017: Gene Michael, the slick-fielding shortstop nicknamed Stick who went on to manage the New York Yankees and then as an executive built a power that won four World Series in five years, died Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017, of a heart attack at his home in Oldsmar, Fla. He was 79.

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Walter Becker, 1950-2017: Walter Becker, the guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the 1970s rock group Steely Dan, which sold more than 40 million albums and produced such hit singles as “Reelin’ In the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number” and “Deacon Blues” died Sunday. Sept. 3, 2017. He was 67.

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John Ashbery, 1927-2017: John Ashbery, an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant and baffling heights, died Sept. 3, 2017, at home in Hudson, New York, of natural causes, according to husband, David Kermani. He was 90.

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Shelley Berman, 1925-2017: Comedian Shelley Berman, who won gold records and appeared on top television shows in the 1950s and 1960s delivering wry monologues about the annoyances of everyday life, died Friday, Sept. 1, 2017. He was 92. Berman was a pioneer of a new brand of comedy that could evoke laughter from such matters as air travel discomforts and small children who answer the telephone. He helped pave the way for Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld and other standup comedians who fashioned their routines around the follies and frustrations of modern living.

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Richard Anderson, 1926-2018: Richard Anderson, the tall, handsome actor best known for costarring simultaneously in the popular 1970s television shows “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman,” died Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, at  age 91.

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Tobe Hooper, 1943-2017: Tobe Hooper, the horror-movie pioneer whose low-budget sensation “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” took a buzz saw to audiences with its brutally frightful vision, died Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. It was reported as a natural death. He was 74. Along with contemporaries like George Romero and John Carpenter, Hooper crafted some of the scariest nightmares that ever haunted moviegoers. Hooper directed 1982’s “Poltergeist” from a script by Steven Spielberg, and helmed the well-regarded 1979 miniseries “Salem’s Lot,” from Stephen King’s novel.

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Thomas, a radio talk show host and actor with recurring roles on the sitcoms “Murphy Brown” and “Cheers,” died Thursday, Aug. 24, 2017, at age 69. Thomas was fighting cancer.

Lewis, the manic, rubber-faced showman who jumped and hollered to fame in a lucrative partnership with Dean Martin, settled down to become a self-conscious screen auteur and found an even greater following as the tireless, teary host of the annual muscular dystrophy telethons, died Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017. He was 91.

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Gregory, the  comedian and activist who inspired a generation of black stand-up performers, joined Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle for civil rights and ran for president against Richard Nixon, died Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017. He was 84.

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Glen Campbell,1936-2017: Campbell, the affable superstar singer of “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Wichita Lineman” whose appeal spanned country, pop, television and movies, died Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017. He was 81. Campbell announced in June 2011 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

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Cook, whose shimmering soprano made her one of Broadway’s leading ingenues and later a major cabaret and concert interpreter of popular American song, died Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017. She was 89.

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Baylor,

the 1979 AL MVP with the California Angels who went on to become manager of the year with the Colorado Rockies in 1995, died Monday, Aug. 7, 2017, of cancer. He was 68.

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Daulton, the All-Star catcher who was the leader of the Philadelphia Phillies’ NL championship team in 1993, died Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. He was 55. Daulton had battled brain cancer since 2013. 

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Parseghian, who took over a foundering Notre Dame football program and restored it to glory with two national championships in 11 seasons, died Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017, at his home in Granger, Ind. He was 94. 

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Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Oscar-nominated actor and celebrated author whose plays chronicled the explosive fault lines of family and masculinity in the American West, died of complications from ALS, Thursday, July 27, 2017, at his home in Kentucky. He was 73.

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June Foray, 1917-2017: Actress June Foray, who gave voice to Rocky the Flying Squirrel and hundreds of other cartoon characters and was sometimes known as the “female Mel Blanc,” has died Wednesday, July 26, 2017, in a Los Angeles hospital. She was 99.

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Barbara Sinatra, 1927-2017: Barbara Sinatra, the fourth wife of legendary singer Frank Sinatra and a prominent children’s advocate and philanthropist who raised millions of dollars to help abused children, died Tuesday, July 25, 2017, at 90 at her Rancho Mirage, Calif., home.

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John Heard, 1945-2017: Actor John Heard, whose many roles included the father in the “Home Alone” series and a corrupt detective in “The Sopranos,”  died Friday, July 21, 2017. He was 71.

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Chester Bennington, 1976-2017: Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington, whose screeching vocals helped the rock-rap band become one of the most commercially successful acts in the 2000s, was found dead in his home near Los Angeles on Thursday, July 20, 2017, of an apparent suicide. He was 41.

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George Romero, 1940-2017: George Romero, whose classic “Night of the Living Dead” and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, dies Sunday, July 16, 2017. He was 77.

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Martin Landau, 1928-2017: Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show “Mission: Impossible,” then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994’s “”Ed Wood,” died Saturday, July 15, 2017. He was 89.

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Stephen Furst, 1955-2017: Stephen Furst, who played naive fraternity pledge Flounder in the hit movie “Animal House,” died of complications from diabetes on Friday, June 16, 2017, in Moorpark, Calif. He was 63. Furst’s long list of credits included the 1980s medical drama “St. Elsewhere” and the 1990s sci-fi series “Babylon 5.”

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Helmut Kohl, 1930-2017: Helmut Kohl, the physically imposing German chancellor whose reunification of a nation divided by the Cold War put Germany at the heart of a united Europe, died Friday, June 16, 2017, at age 87.

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Adam West, 1928-2017: Adam West, who portrayed the superhero Batman in a wildly popular television show in the 1960s and who seemed trapped in the character’s cape and tights for the rest of his career, died Friday, June 9, 2017, in Los Angeles. He was 88. The cause was leukemia.

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Glenne Headly, 1955-2017: Glenne Headly, a versatile stage actress who had a promising start to her Hollywood career in the con-artist comedy “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” and who later worked extensively in television, with appearances in the miniseries “Lonesome Dove” and on shows such as “ER” and “Monk,” died Thursday, June 8, 2017. She was 62.

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Jimmy Piersall, 1929-2017: Jimmy Piersall, the often outrageous outfielder and broadcaster whose emotional breakdown while a rookie with the Boston Red Sox was portrayed in the 1957 movie “Fear Strikes Out,” a rare glimpse, for its time, at an athlete’s mental illness, died Saturday, June 3, 2017, in Wheaton, Illinois. He was 87.

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Manuel Noriega, 1934-2017: Gen. Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman and onetime American ally who was toppled from power in a 1989 U.S. invasion and who spent more than two decades imprisoned on drug dealing and conspiracy convictions, died Monday, May 29, 2017. He was most likely 83.

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: The music legend, whose bluesy vocals and soulful touch on the Hammond B-3 organ helped propel the Allman Brothers Band to superstardom and spawn Southern rock, died Saturday, May 20, 2017. He was 69.

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Moore, the suavely insouciant star of seven James Bond films, died Tuesday, May 23, 2017, in Switzerland. He was 89. The British actor died after a short battle with cancer.

Chris Cornell, 1964-2017: Rocker Chris Cornell, the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave, died Wednesday, May 17, 2017, at age 52. Cornell killed himself by hanging in a Detroit hotel room following a concert. With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle’s emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

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Roger Ailes, 1940-2017: Roger Ailes, the communications maestro who transformed television news and America’s political conversation by creating and ruling Fox News Channel for two decades before being ousted last year for alleged sexual harassment, died Thursday, May 18, 2017. He was 77.

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Powers Boothe, 1948-2017: Powers Boothe, the character actor known for his villain roles in TV’s “Deadwood,” and in the movies “Tombstone,” “Sin City” and “The Avengers,” dies Sunday, May 14, 2017, of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 68.

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Jonathan Demme, 1944-2017: Jonathan Demme, the eclectic, ever-enthusiastic filmmaker behind the Oscar winners “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” and the director of one of the most seminal concert films ever made, the Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense,” died Wednesday, April 26, 2017. He was 73. Demme died in his New York apartment, surrounded by his family, from complications from esophageal cancer.

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Erin Moran, 1960-2017: Erin Moran, the former child star who played Joanie Cunningham in the sitcoms “Happy Days” and “Joanie Loves Chachi,” has died. She was 56. Moran was found dead Saturday, April 22, 2017, at her southern Indiana home. She likely died from cancer.

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Cuba Gooding Sr., 1944-2017: Cuba Gooding Sr., who sang the 1972 hit “Everybody Plays the Fool,” died Thursday, April 20, 2017, at age 72. Authorities say the singer, father of Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr., was found dead in a car  in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.

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Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his cell in Massachusetts where he was serving a life term for the murder of Odin Llyod.

Charlie Murphy, 1959-2017: Charlie Murphy, the older brother of Eddie Murphy and a comic performer in his own right who turned encounters with Rick James and Prince into standout sketches on “Chappelle’s Show,” died Wednesday, April 12, 2017, in New York of leukemia. He was 57.

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Dorothy Mengering, 1921-2017: David Letterman’s mother Dorothy Mengering, a Midwestern homemaker who became an unlikely celebrity in her 70s as she baked mystery pies and covered the Olympics for her son’s late-night show, died Tuesday, April 11, 2017. She was 95. The two had great on-air chemistry, her homespun sincerity proving the perfect foil for her son’s urban acerbity.

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J. Geils, 1946-2017: Musician J. Geils, founder of The J. Geils Band, known for such peppy early ’80s pop hits as “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold,” died Tuesday, April 11, 2017, at his Groton, Mass., home. He was 71.

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Don Rickles, 1926-2017: Don Rickles, the big-mouthed, bald-headed comedian whose verbal assaults endeared him to audiences and peers and made him the acknowledged grandmaster of insult comedy, died Thursday, April 6, 2017. He was 90. Despite jokes that from other comics might have inspired boycotts, he was one of the most beloved people in show business, idolized by everyone from Joan Rivers and Louis CK to Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman.

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Paul O’Neill, 1956-2017: Paul O’Neill, who founded the progressive metal band Trans-Siberian Orchestra that was known for its spectacular holiday concerts filled with theatrics, lasers and pyrotechnics, died Wednesday, April 5, 2017, at age 61. O’Neill was found dead in his room by hotel staff at a Tampa Embassy Suites. The band said in a statement that O’Neill died from a “chronic illness.” O’Neill was a rock producer and manager who began putting together Trans-Siberian Orchestra in 1996. The band is best known for its hard rock takes on Christmas staples like “Carol of the Bells.”

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Chuck Barris, 1929-2017: Chuck Barris, whose game show empire included “The Dating Game,” “The Newlywed Game” and that infamous factory of cheese, “The Gong Show,” died Tuesday, March 21, 2017, at his home in Palisades, New York. He was 87.

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Chuck Berry, 1926-2017: Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll’s founding guitar hero and storyteller who defined the music’s joy and rebellion in such classics as “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” died Saturday, March 18, 2017, at his home near St. Louis. He was 90.

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Author-columnist Jimmy Breslin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of wise guys and underdogs who became the brash embodiment of the old-time, street smart New Yorker, died Sunday, March 20, 2017, at his Manhattan home of complications from pneumonia. He was 88.

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Martin McGuinness, 1950-2017: Martin McGuinness, an Irishman whose tactics of armed resistance and then political conciliation made him a hero to nationalists in Northern Ireland, where he fought to end British rule, negotiated a sweeping peace treaty and climbed to the top of the province’s political system, died Tuesday, March 21, 2017, in Derry, Northern Ireland. He was 66.

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David Rockefeller, 1915-2017: David Rockefeller, the billionaire businessman and philanthropist who was the last in his generation of one of the country’s most famously philanthropic families, died Monday, March 20, 2017, in his sleep at his home in suburban Pocantico Hills, New York. He was 101. He was the youngest of six children born to John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the grandson of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller.

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Bill Paxton, 1955-2016: Bill Paxton, a prolific and charismatic actor who had memorable roles in such blockbusters as “Apollo 13” and “Titanic” while also cherishing his work in “One False Move” and other low-budget movies and in the HBO series “Big Love,” died Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, from complications due to surgery. He was 61.

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Famous Yosemite big wall climber Royal Robbins, one of the pioneers of American rock climbing, died March 14, 2017

Legendary blues man James Cotton, a Grammy Award-winning blues harmonica master whose full-throated sound backed such blues legends as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin’ Wolf, died Thursday, March 16, 2017 at age 81 of pneumonia at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. 

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Joseph Wapner, 1919-2017: Joseph Wapner, the retired Los Angeles judge who presided over “The People’s Court” with steady force during the heyday of the reality courtroom show, died Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017, at age 97. “The People’s Court,” on which Wapner decided real small-claims from 1981 to 1993, was one of the granddaddies of the syndicated reality shows of today.

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Colmes, the radio and television host and commentator best known as the amiable liberal foil to the hard-right Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, died Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. A statement from his family said that he died after “a brief illness.”

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Connors, who starred as a hard-hitting private eye on the long-running television series “Mannix,” has died at 91. The show ran for eight years on CBS beginning in 1967. Viewers were intrigued by the tall, smartly dressed, well-spoken detective who could mix it up with the burliest of thugs.

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McCorvey, left, the anonymous plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the United States, died of heart failure at an assisted living center in Katy, Texas, on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017.

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The star of TV’s beloved “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” whose comic realism helped revolutionize the depiction of women on the small screen, died at the age of 80. Moore gained fame in the 1960s as the frazzled wife Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” In the 1970s, she created one of TV’s first career-woman sitcom heroines in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

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One of the founding members of Southern rock legend The Allman Brothers, Trucks died at the age of 69 at his home in Florida. Trucks was one of two original drummers, along with Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson, who helped formed the rhythms and the drive for The Allman Brothers. Formed in 1969 and led by Duane and Gregg Allman, the group helped define the Southern rock sound that incorporated blues, rock, country and jazz.

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Ferrer, who followed his Academy Award-winning father, Jose, into acting and often portrayed lawmen and tough guys, died Thursday at his home at 61.

Former astronaut Gene Cernan, the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon who returned to Earth with a message of “peace and hope for all mankind,” died at 82. Cernan, commander of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission, set foot on the lunar surface in 1972. He became the last person to walk on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972.

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Sir John Hurt, who could move audiences to tears in “The Elephant Man,” terrify them in ““Alien,” and spoof that very same scene in “Spaceballs,” has died at age 77. Hurt, who battled pancreatic cancer, passed away Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, in London according to his agent Charles McDonald. 

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Al Jarreau, 1940-2017: Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau, who transcended genres over a 50-year career, died at a Los Angeles hospital Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017, just days after announcing his retirement from touring because of exhaustion.

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Richard Hatch, 1945-2017: Actor Richard Hatch, best known for playing Captain Apollo in the original “Battlestar Galactica” film and TV series, died Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, in Los Angeles after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71. he also appeared in such series as “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat” and “Santa Barbara.” He also appeared in the rebooted “Battlestar Galactica” TV series from 2004 to 2009.

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