didn't invent the late-night talk show. Steve Allen and Jack Paar, among others, did. But Carson perfected it, solidified it and bronzed it -- to the extent that those who follow him will never be better than he was.

The longtime Tonight Show host, who died Jan. 23 at age 79, perfected the monologue that kicks off most late-night shows -- but he knew the secret wasn't in how well the jokes worked but how well he reacted to the jokes that bombed. He was so zeroed in on current events that audiences in the '60s, '70s and '80s relied on him for the headlines, the way Daily Show audiences rely on Jon Stewart for theirs today. He created the right mix of rapport and tension with his sidekick, Ed McMahon, and bandleaders Skitch Henderson (who also died in 2005) and Doc Severinsen.

Most of all, Carson knew how to handle the interview portion of his show. He was seldom fawning, the way even an ironist like David Letterman can be; he didn't feel the need to interject a joke simply to lighten the mood, the way Stewart does. When he was bored or bemused, he wasn't afraid to show it.

Carson, who hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years, changed pop culture; without him, we wouldn't have had McMahon's cries of "Heeere's Johnny" and "Hi-oh!"; we wouldn't have had the almost reflexive response to the statement, "It was so hot today"; we wouldn't have had Letterman (who made his TV debut on Carson's show) or Stewart, not to mention Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, etc. Even at their best, those names will never be on Carson's level. Letterman said it best: "All of us who came after are pretenders," he told The Associated Press. "We will not see the likes of him again. . . . He was the best, a star and a gentleman."

arguably wrote the great American tragedy, Death of a Salesman, about aging salesman Willy Loman, who faces a failing career and unappreciative sons. The play, written in 1949, won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize, and overshadowed virtually everything else Miller did in his career.

That's a towering achievement, considering some of Miller's other works: The Crucible, written in 1953, a drama about the Salem witch trials that doubled as a condemnation of McCarthyism (it also won a Tony); The Price, a 1967 family drama (the 1971 TV version won George C. Scott an Emmy); Playing for Time, a classic 1980 TV movie featuring Vanessa Redgrave as a musician whose performances keep her from dying in a Nazi concentration camp.

Miller, who died Feb. 10 at 89, was known for his private life as well, most significantly as Marilyn Monroe's third husband. He wrote the screenplay to her final film, The Misfits, which came out in 1961, the year their five-year marriage officially ended. His last play, Finishing the Picture, was inspired by the troubled filming of that movie. In 1956, the year he married Monroe, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee that was investigating communism in the United States.

But while those events have faded, Miller's stage work still stands: More than 50 years after they were first produced, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible retain their power and their poignancy. As long as there are theater groups, these plays will live on.

was a voice. His rich, smooth baritone carried an authority that made him a sought-after narrator of documentaries. His strength emanated from the stage and the small and big screens. He spoke through his acting, writing and directing. And he was a voice for civil rights.

Davis died Feb. 4 at age 87. Along with his wife, actress Ruby Dee, Davis had taken stands since the early 50s, fighting McCarthyism just as his career was beginning to take off. He eulogized civil-rights giants Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Betty Shabazz; he spoke out against the war in Iraq; he defended celebrities' right to express themselves politically, saying that he was a citizen first and foremost.

Davis expressed himself in a variety of ways as an actor, too: In more than 70 movies and TV series and on Broadway, from the relatively frivolous (The Scalphunters, Bubba Ho-Tep) to the groundbreaking (Raisin in the Sun, Roots). Along with Dee and Sidney Poitier, he helped open the door for serious roles for black actors in Hollywood. He wrote five movies and directed five, and he and Dee co-hosted a TV show and co-wrote a book. They stayed together for 56 years, an epic marriage by any standard but practically unheard of in Hollywood. And he was never one to retire; not only did he keep speaking out, but he worked so late in life that his final work, in Showtime's The L Word, continued to air a couple of months after his death. His voice may be silent, but his legacy lives on.

was one of the giants of American architecture, and yet it's surprisingly easy to take him for granted. It's easy, say, to drive by Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum and forget -- or be unaware -- that it was a Johnson masterpiece. It's easy to forget, or be unaware, that he designed the Fort Worth Water Gardens.

But then, Johnson was prolific, and it was easy to take his productivity for granted. He worked with cityscapes, designing the heavily gabled, pink granite, 56-story RepublicBank building in Houston; Pittsburgh's neo-Gothic PPG Industries building; New York's AT&T (now Sony) building. City dwellers tend to register buildings like these, then file them away in their subconscious, and when they think of them, they think of the work itself, not its creator.

Johnson, who died Jan. 25 at age 98, was an Ohio native who owed a lot to Texas. Houston cultural patrons John and Dominique de Menil gave him his first commission, asking him to design their home in the 1930s. Fort Worth's Ruth Carter Stevenson, a friend of Johnson's for most of the past 50 years, enlisted him to design the Carter and the Water Gardens.

He was known for his perfectionism, but he refused to be locked in to particular forms or designs. What Johnson wanted most was to be inventive, to be challenged and challenging, working well into his 90s.

In 1994, Cochran joined the "Dream Team" of lawyers defending football legend O.J. Simpson on murder charges, and he quickly went from celebrity lawyer to celebrity, period -- especially after he uttered the televised trial's No. 1 sound bite: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

That impassioned phrase, referring to a blood-stained glove that was too small for Simpson, was just one example of Cochran's style and courtroom magnetism, which actor Phil Morris amusingly sent up as "Jackie Chiles" on NBC's Seinfeld. But for all his flamboyance, Cochran, who died March 29 of an inoperable brain tumor, wasn't merely a caricature. The 67-year-old had spent most of his life unknown outside of Los Angeles County, where he was first a prosecutor who helped change the county's handling of police shooting cases and then a lawyer who was an advocate for civil rights and then against police brutality.

While he is best known for his work on the Simpson case and defending pop icon Michael Jackson in a 1993 child-molestation trial, Cochran always said he was proudest of his civil-rights cases. The pinnacle of his career, he once said, was the day he helped free Black Panther Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, who had spent 27 years in jail on a murder charge.

Bizarre? He had a unique style, known for his shades and his ever-present cigarette holder, and for his habits of prodigious drug-taking and random firearm-shooting. Unrestrained? Anyone who's read the rambling, surreal, from-the-inside prose of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas knows just how unrestrained Thompson can be. Extravagant? After Thompson committed suicide at age 67 on Feb. 20, his lawyer revealed that his last wish was that he be cremated -- and that his ashes be shot from a cannon. On Aug. 20, he got his wish, with actors Johnny Depp and Bill Murray (who had both portrayed him in movies) present, as well as longtime illustrator Ralph Steadman and actor Sean Penn.

Thompson was once such a counterculture force that Rolling Stone devoted an entire issue to appreciations of him after he shot himself, apparently despondent over his declining health. And Garry Trudeau based his Doonesbury character Uncle Duke on him, leading some (occasionally including Thompson himself) to complain that the real-life Thompson had turned into a cartoon character himself, a self-parody who lost his relevance after his archenemy President Nixon left the White House.

News of Thompson's suicide had a strange effect: At first, fans were shocked. Then they realized that Thompson's end -- headline-making, with a gun, and on his own terms -- wasn't really surprising at all.

Their deaths came in couplets: On May 19, Corden died of respiratory failure at age 85; Ravenscroft died three days later, of prostate cancer at age 91. Winchell died June 24 at age 82; his Pooh co-star, Fiedler, died of cancer a day later, at age 80.

Of course, they weren't just the voices of Fred Flintstone or Tony the Tiger. Ravenscroft was a singer who did voice work -- often uncredited -- for many Disney movies. Winchell, who had his own TV series in the '50s, was also the voice of Dick Dastardly and the Banana Splits' Fleegle, among dozens of other characters. And Fiedler, probably the most recognizable from his stint on the Bob Newhart Show, used his high-pitched voice not just for Piglet but for other Disney characters, as well as for a litany of nervous, bald-headed, bespectacled nonanimated characters.

Ask any movie nut to play a game of word association in which you say and they'll likely respond, "Mrs. Robinson." It's only natural: As the boozy, middle-aged mom who seduces alienated, nervous Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in 1967's The Graduate, she established one of the cinema's landmark characters.

But it wasn't her only landmark performance. Bancroft, who died of uterine cancer at age 73 on June 6, won a Best Actress Oscar for playing Helen Keller's teacher Annie Sullivan in 1962's The Miracle Worker, reprising the stage role that earned her a Tony Award. She would be nominated for Oscars three other times, for 1964's The Pumpkin Eater, 1977's The Turning Point and 1985's Agnes of God. Many believe she should have been nominated yet again, for her performance in 1987's book-centric middle-age romance 84 Charing Cross Road.

Bancroft shifted ably from drama to comedy (even appearing in a couple of husband Mel Brooks' movies), from poignant to authoritative. She brought all those aspects to Mrs. Robinson, but that was merely her most famous role in a long and varied career.

When an actor finds the right TV role, it can be a blessing and a curse. Of three '60s TV stars who died this year, only one is really known for anything beyond the TV roles that made him famous.

who died of pneumonia at age 99 on May 26, had spent nearly 30 years in movies and on TV before 1965, when he scored the role that would mark the rest of his career: Oliver Wendell Douglas, the city slicker turned country farmer who was befuddled by all the rural rubes on Green Acres -- not to mention his socialite wife, Lisa (Eva Gabor). Albert continued acting into the '90s, appearing in series such as Switch and General Hospital, but his most transcendent moment came with a complete change of pace, as the corrupt warden in the 1974 version of The Longest Yard.

who died of complications from cancer treatment at age 70 on Sept. 2, never achieved even that much transcendence. Denver is so connected with goofball Gilligan on 1964-'67's Gilligan's Island that some people forgot he played another indelible TV character, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on the 1959-'63 series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Denver tried to launch other TV series, but none of them lasted very long, and he kept returning to his two most famous characters, playing Maynard as late as a 1988 Dobie TV-movie and Gilligan, or very close variations thereof, all the way into the '90s.

who died of a lung infection at age 82 on Sept. 25, played three roles -- Get Smart's bumbling agent Maxwell Smart, plus the cartoon characters Tennessee Tuxedo and Inspector Gadget -- but he was most identified with Get Smart. His Associated Press obituary concluded with this line: "In a 1995 interview, Mr. Adams said the show 'hindered me career-wise because I was typed. The character was so strong, particularly because of that distinctive voice, that nobody could picture me in any other type of role.'" He could have been speaking for Albert and Denver as well.

If wasn't the most influential comedian who ever lived, he was a close second to Lenny Bruce. The two shared a lot: ground-breaking, door-busting, confrontational comedy as well as self-destructive lifestyles. Drugs took Bruce at 40; they very nearly killed Pryor when he was about the same age.

But Pryor, who died Dec. 10 at age 65, lived long enough to tell about his experiences -- and tell he did. In his 1982 concert film Live on the Sunset Strip, Pryor references the infamous freebasing incident in which he accidentally set himself on fire: "I saw something, I went, 'Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like fire.' Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I ran the 100 in 4.3."

"Richard basically blazed a trail for black comedy; he defined what it is," Wayans told The Washington Post in a 1998 interview. "As a young black man he was saying what he felt -- and that was shocking."

Jennings, who died at age 67 on Aug. 7, four months after telling viewers that he had lung cancer, held the anchor chair at ABC longer than anyone else. He did solo stints from 1965 to 1968, and from 1983 to 2005, as well as co-anchoring from 1978 to 1983.

He could be fascinating, infuriating, divisive. His erudite baritone gave you the impression that he was the smartest guy in the room -- and knew it (interestingly, he never graduated from high school). A native of Canada, he was often criticized by media-watchdog groups as being anti-American. But he had an insatiable curiosity, a love of history and a dedication to his craft that made him work long hours even as producers tried to drag him away.

He was first placed in the anchor chair when he was 26, as ABC attempted to go after young viewers. Even as he approached 40, he was sometimes dismissed as a "pretty boy." But he carried with him an air of sophistication and a deep grounding in international reporting. And, in documentaries such as the long-form The Century and 2000's In Search of Jesus, he showed that although he might have thought of himself as the smartest guy around, he knew that there was always room to learn more.

"I sing about love," he once told The Washington Post, "but I also sing about introspection and emotional status and the emotional journey that people go through during the course of a day and how it can affect you -- all the decisions that you make for your life."

Vandross, who died of stroke complications July 1 at age 54, had a string of R&B hits throughout the '80s and continued adding to his legion of fans through the '90s and into the 21st century.

He was a pure tenor who emphasized crooning over belting, although he was capable of the latter. He preferred simplicity over glitz, quiet mood over bombast, vulnerability over bluster, positive attitude over melancholy.

When won the gold medal at the 1989 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he was a teen-ager from Uzbekistan. By 1991, he was a Fort Worth homeowner, married to Latvian cellist Dace Abele, watching from a distance as the Soviet Union crumbled. For the rest of the decade, he remained an in-demand concert performer and a fixture in Star-Telegram society columns. Several writers described Sultanov's dichotomy: a shy, mop-topped teen-ager but a bold pianist, capable of moving an audience to rapture or melancholy.

Sultanov, who died at age 35 on June 30 had a playful side, as well as ambitions that went beyond classical music. A 1991 Star-Telegram column refers to Sultanov's goals of becoming a millionaire, owning an airline and being a jazz-rock composer. A later column provides an anecdote of how he kept a visiting Russian pianist friend from practicing because they were too busy playing Nintendo.

In 2001, months before that year's Cliburn, Sultanov suffered a massive stroke. He fought back but never fully recovered, never returned to the grand stage. But he did have one more public performance: When he became a U.S. citizen in a November 2004 ceremony at the Fort Worth Convention Center, he approached a piano in a wheelchair with an American flag attached to it and, with wife Dace playing the left-hand part, played America the Beautiful.

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