A Tribute To 'The Lives They Lived'
Celebrity photographer Herb Ritts was just one of the many well-known personalities who died in 2002. This Sunday, The New York Times publishes a special edition called "The Lives They Lived," paying tribute to some of the memorable people who died this year.
For the first time, the magazine is published in collaboration with a documentary, which will air Sunday on Discovery Civilization channel, and on the Discovery Channel Jan. 4.
The selection criteria used by the magazine was loose, says story editor Joel Lovell. "But, the general overriding criteria, is does this person's life lend itself to a good story. So, throughout the course of the year, the editors sit around, we comb through the obits in the Times, so speaking, and talk about who it affects the most. And then we turn it over to our writers, usually writers from the magazine but sometimes experts from outside of the magazine and say who interests you the most? Who do you feel passionate about? Whose story really fires your imagination?"
Among the people chosen are Milton Berle, Lionel Hampton, Ann Landers, and Johnny Unitas.
Unitas is the perfect example of somebody who is very well known, says Lovell. "When he died, he was covered extensively, and yet we had a writer who grew up in Pittsburgh who was a devout football fan his entire life, who had a really sort of animating idea about Unitas as this guy who was both molded in the Pittsburgh steel valley, and sort of representative of that place, and was also the first in a string of fantastic quarterbacks - Joe Namath and Joe Montana, Dan Marino - to come from that area," he says.
Some subjects are controversial. For example, the famed porn star, Linda Lovelace, is profiled.
She was responsible for the term "deep throat" becoming part of our national vocabulary. It later was adopted by The Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to refer to their still anonymous Watergate source.
"That's a situation where in many cases she's not an obvious choice of a life to celebrate, maybe, for some people. But the story of her life really does feel like some small, sort-of-Greek tragedy," says Lovell.
Lovelace later wrote a tell-all autobiography documenting a life of abuse and exploitation and disavowing pornography. But, ironically, towards the end of her life she resorts to pornography.
"In the last days of her life, she's destitute. She's in poor health. So she returns to the porn industry to try to make some money and try to put her life back together, selling T-shirts related to deep throat," Lovell explains. Lovelace died in an auto accident.
A person who especially had an incredible impact in the media business was Milton Berle. Though he was not a particular likable person, he became the first huge television personality. His profile was written by columnist and cultural critic Frank Rich.
"As Frank says in the opening lines of his piece, Uncle Milty was anything but avuncular. He wasn't like anyone's uncle.
"He was a cranky, difficult guy," says Lovell. "But he was also just a relentless gag machine. If you watch those early shows of the Texaco Star Theater you see him just moving from gag to gag, so fast, in such a sort of rapid-fire way," Lovell explains.
Rich chose Berle over Billy Wilder, even though Wilder was one of the greatest writers and directors of all time. His life has been covered extensively by the time he died. "And ultimately he (Rich) felt like he had more to say about Berle than about Wilder," Lovell says. Wilder's profile is however included in the Discovery documentary.
Another good story was Ann Lander's. Though she was recognized as this sort of princess of common sense, she was quite progressive in her columns.
"She would tell people, this is the way you should go about your day-to-day affairs, but then also, she was pro-gun control, she was against the Vietnam war. She really sort of was espousing these views that were quite radical for newspapers of the day," notes Lovell.
Other profiles are of Daniel Pearl (magazine only), Ted Williams (magazine and documentary) and Rosemary Clooney. (documentary only).
The magazine also includes a profile of the famed terrorist Abu Nidal. Nidal died a forgotten man under bizarre circumstances in Baghdad, but he can be considered "the father of modern terrorism." His group - Fatah Revolutionary Council - fact hijacked a Pan Am plane in the '80s heading to Karachi with the intent of crashing it in Tel Aviv. Nidal also was believed responsible for deadly terrorist attacks on civilians in schools and synagogues and at El Al counters in European airports.