2016's Entity of the Year: The Grim Reaper

Gene Wilder - I loved his persona in some movies. And his devotion to Gilda touched me.

John Glenn - For his exploits as an astronaut, and his nice guy personality.

Bobby Vee because he is a connection to the love of the music of the fifties and his tie to the Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J P Richardson (Big Bopper) tragedy.

Bowie probably hit me hardest, he was and is a long time fave

Ron Glass...

Gene Wilder - I've loved his face.

I think Dag knew Elie Wiesel, but I don't remember all her discussions about him.

Yes.

I was aware of Greg Lake of course, but in the last year I kept coming across videos and TV shows about him. During his interviews he kept on emphasizing how important it was to him to keep connecting with the audience that was following him all these years. Since he died after what they said was a long bout of cancer, I wonder if his last tour was really his goodbye tour for his fans only they didn't know it.

Leonard Cohen

Leonard was one of my all time favorite people.

EL &P ma a really great version of "Fanfare for the Common Man"
I think it was recorded in some stadium because of the acoustics on the CD.

Hd been a favorite of mine.
Y know, its gotten to the point that these musicians are dying just because of organismal apoptosis as opposed to OD's or suicide, or driving into a bridge ,or a plane crash

For me its gotta be Cohen, Gene Wilder and Prince and now EL&P

That's true, that people are just kind of hitting their expiration dates/the 60s and 70s drugs are finally catching up with them no matter how healthy they have been for the last few decades.

Sorry I forgot Leonard Cohen! Of course. And Ron Glass, a favorite in two separate fandoms.

I think for me at least, Yelchin is really tragic because his death was probably preventable and the end had to have been pretty terrifying if he was at all aware it was happening.

The one person I will always miss is Joan Rivers. What a sense of humor and what a lady!

I heard her the other night being interviewed on the rerun of an old TV show. She told us about "covering her bases", when it came to death and the issue of spirituality.

Her husband died in a hotel room and while Joan and her husband were Jewish, she believed that it would do her husband a good turn, if she had a Catholic priest visit the exact hotel room ( some time later), where her husband died...so as to put his soul to "rest".

A Catholic priest did Joan a favor, went to the hotel room and blessed the room .To Joan, not only was her husband now resting in peace, but Joan herself was happy and very grateful for the visitation by the Catholic priest.

If she did not pursue being cosmetically best, for her public, in my opinion, she would still be with us. I had once seen a documentary of her latter years, where she loved having her monthly calendar filled up, to the point of giving shows in places that required her to fly in on a propeller plane. Plus, she took a red-eye to the west coast weekly to see her daughter and grandson. Very dedicated to those she loved, in my opinion. I just wish she could have slowed down a bit, and accepted what years do to one's looks; she would still be with us, in my opinion. (Yes, I'm repeating myself.)

She did have some tiff with Johnny Carson, and since I thought highly of Johnny Carson, I have to wonder why she did not have more gratitude to him for his giving her a break after years of schlepping? Johnny Carson was an ensign, I believe, in WWII. That trumps Joans dynamic personality. Sorry, Johnny helped win WWII, Joan did not.

The Grim Reaper was so busy this year (but not with Joan Rivers, who died in 2014), that we all missed on my initial list:

• Antonin Scalia (February)
  
• Actress Doris Roberts (April)
  
• Muhammed Ali (June)
  
• Director Arthur Hiller (August)

Ali was another I had great affection for.

Oh, Doris Roberts. It just hit me who she was. I liked her as Raymond's mother.

Has anyone mentioned Animal, the Muppets' drummer? Rest in Peace, Animal, you animal.

I didn't follow Arthur Hiller myself, but for a friend of ours, a director and film school teacher, Hiller was the best director ongoing at the time, a fair amount of time.

I was all over the map with Ali. I watched him yell and rhyme and make claims that he was the greatest. I was a little girl raised in a genteel family, so I thought he was really mean.

I watched him say mean things about my country, and it sealed my opinion that he was a mean man, additionally a war-dodging America-hater. In my family, all men served since our 1600 emigration. All men served.

It took a great bunch of maturing and perspective shifts to realize how beautifully true his anti-war stance was ---and how plain damn brave he was to stand in his truth when he was so criticized.

He's now one of my heroes.

By the time Ali refused to serve, I had already gone negative on the war. I admired him and was angry that they made him quit fighting three years in the prime of his career.