Robert Paul Kraft (June 16, 1927 – May 26, 2015) was an American astronomer. He performed pioneering work on Cepheid variables, stellar rotation, novae, and the chemical evolution of the Milky Way. His name is also associated with the Kraft break: the abrupt change in the average rotation rate of main sequence stars around spectral type F8.
Palmer Edwin Lee (January 25, 1927 – October 31, 2015), known by his stage name Gregg Palmer, was an American film and television actor.
James Aaron Diamond (28 September 1951 – 8 October 2015) was a Scottish singer-songwriter, best known for his three top 5 hits: "I Won't Let You Down" (1982), as the lead singer of PhD; and his solo performances "I Should Have Known Better", a United Kingdom No. 1 in 1984, and "Hi Ho Silver", the theme song from Boon, which reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart in 1986.
Roberto Tucci, SJ (19 April 1921 – 14 April 2015) was an Italian priest of the Catholic Church. A theologian, a journalist, and a member of the Jesuits, he played an important role at the Second Vatican Council, held senior positions managing communications for the Holy See, and organized the foreign trips taken by Pope John Paul II. He was made a cardinal in 2001, and continued to prefer being addressed as "Padre Tucci".
Henriette Ragon (10 June 1918 – 30 April 2015), better known as Patachou, was a French singer and actress. She was an Officier of the Légion d'honneur.
Neil LeVang (January 3, 1932 – January 26, 2015) was an American musician who was best known from television's The Lawrence Welk Show, playing guitar, violin and banjo.
Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams (November 4, 1936 – September 20, 2015) was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. Flesh and Blood won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Repair (1999) won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Singing won the 2003 National Book Award and Williams received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2005. The 2012 film The Color of Time relates aspects of Williams' life using his poetry.
Carl Llewellyn Weschcke (September 10, 1930 – November 7, 2015) was an American publisher and the president/owner of Llewellyn Worldwide (formerly Llewellyn Publications) from 1961 until his death. He received nationwide media attention when he bought the supposedly haunted Summit Avenue Mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1964, and claimed to have "numerous odd experiences" there.
Born in St. Paul, Weschke bought Llewellyn Publications in early 1961 when he was president of Chester-Kent, Inc. In 1970, Weschcke opened the Gnostica Bookstore in Minneapolis, as well as the "Gnostica School for Self-Development", based on Gnostic teachings. He also began the Gnostic Aquarian Festivals in Minneapolis, also known as Gnosticon during the 1970s, which helped fuel the rise in awareness of occult and metaphysical teachings.
Weschcke was elected president of the NAACP's Minnesota branch in 1959 and vice president of the ACLU's Minnesota branch in 1965.
Suzette Haden Elgin (born Patricia Anne Suzette Wilkins; November 18, 1936 – January 27, 2015) was an American researcher in experimental linguistics, construction and evolution of languages and poetry and science fiction writer. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. Her best-known non-fiction includes her Verbal Self-Defense series.
Mattiwilda Dobbs (July 11, 1925 – December 8, 2015) was an American coloratura soprano and was one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. She was the first black singer to perform at La Scala in Italy, the first black woman to receive a long-term performance contract and to sing a lead role at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the first black singer to play a lead role at the San Francisco Opera.