By Steven Gittelson
PLAYBOY magazine founder Hugh Hefner, Fox News Channel chief executive officer Roger Ailes and billionaire philanthropist David Rockefeller were among newsmakers in business, finance and public affairs who died in 2017.
The business world lost Raymond Sackler, who bought Purdue Pharma LP, producer of the controversial pain pill OxyContin; Taizo Nishimuro, former head of Toshiba Corp. and the Tokyo Stock Exchange; Jeffrey Brotman, co-founder of Costco Wholesale Corp.; Paul Otellini, former CEO of chipmaker Intel Corp.; and Joan Tisch, the billionaire matriarch of the clan that started Loews Corp.
Financial leaders who died included Henry Hillman, who provided startup funding for venture-capital pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and private-equity firm KKR & Co.; Liliane Bettencourt, the L’Oreal SA heiress who was the world’s wealthiest woman; and James Maguire, who matched buyers and sellers of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares as Warren Buffett’s New York Stock Exchange floor specialist.
Among deceased public sector figures were Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian dictator who was ousted by a US invasion and imprisoned for drug trafficking; Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor who oversaw his country’s reunification after the Cold War; and Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.
Here are the year’s notable deaths, with each name linked to a previously published obituary. A cause of death is provided when known.
January
Mario Soares, 92. Prime minister who helped consolidate Portugal’s transition to democracy and in 1976 became the first freely elected premier after a revolution ended almost five decades of dictatorship. Died Jan. 7.
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 82. Co-founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran who served two terms as president and was a key ally of President Hassan Rouhani. Died Jan. 8 from heart failure at a hospital in Tehran.
Mary Tyler Moore, 80. American actress who made lasting changes to how women and marriage are portrayed in popular culture through the characters she portrayed in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Died Jan. 25.
February
Ken Morrison, 85. Turned his father’s local grocery store into the UK’s fourth-biggest supermarket chain, Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc, which operates more than 500 stores. Died Feb. 1 at his home in Yorkshire, in northern England, after a brief illness.
Marisa Leticia Lula da Silva, 66. The wife of former two-term Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, she was charged in connection with Brazil’s long-running probe into bribes involving the state-run oil company Petrobras. Died Feb 3. at the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo after a stroke.
Vitaly Churkin, 64. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations since 2006 who defended his nation’s foreign policy as it waged war with Georgia, annexed the Crimean peninsula and supported separatists in Ukraine. Died Feb. 20 in New York.
Kenneth Arrow, 95. The US scholar whose study of how the various parts of an economy work toward equilibrium won him the Nobel Prize in 1972 and established him as one of the founders of modern economics. Died Feb. 21 at his home in Palo Alto, California.
March
Stephen Ross, 73. Economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology best known for developing arbitrage pricing theory in 1976 and other models that shaped economic theory and investment management. Died March 3 from cardiac arrest at his home in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
David Rockefeller, 101. The U.S. banker, philanthropist, presidential adviser and heir to one of history’s most fabled fortunes was also the world’s oldest billionaire. Died March 20 from congestive heart failure at his home in Pocantico Hills, New York.
Martin McGuinness, 66. Former Irish Republican Army leader and Sinn Fein leader who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland after decades of sectarian violence. Died March 21.
Ahmed Kathrada, 87. Anti-apartheid activist who, along with Nelson Mandela, spent more than two decades in prison for plotting to overthrow South Africa’s white-minority government. Died March 28 in a Johannesburg hospital following brain surgery.
April
Henry Hillman, 98. Billionaire who diversified his family’s Pittsburgh-based coal and coke fortune and provided startup funding for private-equity firm KKR & Co. and Silicon Valley venture-capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Died April 14 at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Raj Kumar Bagri, 86. Rose from filing clerk at a Calcutta trading company to chairman of the London Metal Exchange. Died April 26.
Thomas Forkner, 98. Co-founded Waffle House, the chain of 1,800 roadside diners spread across half the US serving Southern-style breakfasts around the clock. Died April 26 at a retirement home in Johns Creek, Georgia. Co-founder Joe Rogers died in March at age 97.
May
Mauno Koivisto, 93. Former president of Finland who steered the Nordic nation through the collapse of the Soviet Union and toward entry into the European Union. Died May 12 at a hospital in Helsinki.
Brad Grey, 59. The former talent agent who led Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures for 12 years before his ouster in February and had produced the groundbreaking television series “The Sopranos.” Died May 14 from cancer.
Roger Ailes, 77. Former US presidential adviser who in 1996 started the Fox News Channel with Rupert Murdoch to promote a Republican agenda and built it into the most-watched US cable news network before resigning amid sexual harassment allegations. Died May 18 from injuries sustained in a fall at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, 89. President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, who advocated a hard line toward the Soviet Union and helped develop the unsuccessful military mission in 1980 to rescue American hostages held in Iran. Died May 26.
Jim Bunning, 85. Hall of Fame baseball player who in 1964 pitched the first perfect game in the National League in more than 80 years and later served two terms as a U.S. senator from Kentucky. Died May 26 from a stroke.
Manuel Noriega, 83. Panamanian dictator who was ousted by a US invasion in 1989, convicted on charges of cocaine trafficking, racketeering and money laundering, and spent more than two decades in prison. Died May 29 from complications following the removal of a brain tumor earlier in the year.
June
Helmut Kohl, 87. German chancellor who oversaw his country’s 1990 reunification after the Cold War, helped forge Europe’s economic and monetary union and gave current chancellor Angela Merkel her first cabinet post. Died June 16 at his home in the western German city of Ludwigshafen.
Desh Bandhu Gupta, 79. Billionaire founder and chairman of Lupin Ltd., India’s second-biggest drugmaker, which grew from a domestic business into a global powerhouse as a producer of generic drugs. Died June 26.
July
Liu Xiaobo, 61. China’s most prominent political prisoner, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 while jailed for advocating a pro-democracy charter that called for direct elections and the right to freedom of assembly. Died July 13 from complications related to liver cancer.
Raymond Sackler, 97. With his brother Mortimer, in 1952 he bought Purdue Pharma LP, which would develop the controversial blockbuster pain pill OxyContin, and in later years gave away millions of dollars to cultural and educational institutions. Died July 17.
August
James Maguire, 86. Won praise from Warren Buffet for efficiently matching buyers and sellers of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares as the company’s New York Stock Exchange floor specialist. Died Aug 21 at his home in Short Hills, New Jersey.
September
Pierre Berge, 86. He helped make Yves Saint Laurent one of the world’s most acclaimed fashion designers and later became a well-known media and cultural figure in France. Died Sept. 8 at his home in Saint-Remy-de-Provence in the south of France after a long illness.
Edith Windsor, 88. Manhattan resident whose landmark legal case led the US Supreme Court in 2013 to establish federal rights for same-sex married couples in more than a dozen states. Died Sept. 12 in New York.
Liliane Bettencourt, 94. The only child of L’Oreal SA founder Eugene Schueller, she owned about one-third of the Paris-based company’s shares, making her the world’s wealthiest woman. Died Sept. 20 at her home in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris.
Hugh Hefner, 91. Founder of Playboy magazine who turned his swinging lifestyle into a professional calling and showed Americans how to be more open about sex. Died Sept. 27 at his home, the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles.
October
Dimitris Lois, 56. CEO since 2011 at Coca-Cola HBC AG, formerly called Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co., based in Zug, Switzerland. Died Oct. 2 while on medical leave for an undisclosed illness.
Paul Otellini, 66. Intel Corp.’s CEO from 2005 to 2013, who pushed the chipmaker to record profits by emphasizing processors for the lucrative computer server market and guiding a partnership with Apple Inc. to bring Intel processors to Mac computers. Died Oct. 2.
Taizo Nishimuro, 81. He held enormous influence over corporate Japan for decades as head of Toshiba Corp., Japan Post Holdings Co. and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. No details were given.
November
Joan Tisch, 90. Billionaire matriarch of the family that co-founded Loews Corp. and co-owns the New York Giants football team. Died Nov. 2 after a brief illness.
Richard Gordon Jr., 88. The Apollo 12 astronaut who in 1969 orbited the moon as command-module pilot during NASA’s second manned moon-landing mission. Died Nov. 6.
Salvatore “The Beast” Riina, 87. Sicilian mafia godfather imprisoned for life after ordering the killings of judges, politicians, mobsters and informers while head of the Corleone crime family. Died Nov. 17 at the section for prisoners in Parma’s hospital, in northern Italy.
Charles Manson, 83. Imprisoned cult leader who in 1969 masterminded the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six other people in Los Angeles. Died Nov. 19 at Kern County Hospital in California.
December
Christine Keeler, 75. Former model whose scandalous affairs with UK government minister John Profumo and a Soviet spy in the 1960s led the Conservative Party to lose power. Died Dec. 4 at a hospital near Farnborough, England.
E. Hunter Harrison, 73. Turned around three railroad carriers during a five-decade career before being tapped by CSX Corp. to improve the company’s lackluster performance. Died Dec. 16 in Wellington, Florida, days after taking medical leave from his role as CEO. Bloomberg