Died December 2015

Longtime Harlem Globetrotter basketball team known for his half-court hook shots

Angela McEwan, a character actress who played a small-town newspaper publisher in the Oscar-nominated movie “Nebraska,” has died. She was 81.

Kurt Masur, the maestro who tamed the New York Philharmonic and united a divided Germany, has died of complications of Parkinson’s disease, The Associated Press and the New York Philharmonic …

Lillian Vernon, the businesswoman who founded the mail-order catalog company that bears her name, has died. She was 88. Vernon, whose corporation was the first company founded by a woman …

NBA Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes died Thursday at the age of 87.

John Trudell, American Indian activist, poet and actor, has died of cancer, according to The Associated Press. He was 69.

Tibor Rubin, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a highly decorated U.S. infantry soldier decades after the Korean War, has died in California, according to multiple news sources. …

Nicholas Smith, an English actor who was the last-surviving original cast member of “Are You Being Served?” – a long-running British television sitcom – has died. He was 81. 

Chuck Williams, founder of the high-end home goods empire Williams-Sonoma, died peacefully of natural causes Saturday at his San Francisco home, The Associated Press and San Francisco Chronicle report.

Robert Loggia, the gravelly voiced character actor from “Scarface,” “The Sopranos,” and “Big,” has died of Alzheimer’s disease, according to The Associated Press. He was 85.