List: 1990 deaths

by likeorhate

•  B. F. Skinner

  Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He came up with the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior.

  

  47.1%
  

  23.5%
  

  29.4%
  
•  Clarence Johnson

  Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson (February 27, 1910 – December 21, 1990) was an aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator. As a member and first team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works, Johnson worked for more than four decades and is said to have been an "organizing genius. " He played a leading role in the design of over forty aircraft including several that were honored with the prestigious Collier Trophy.

  

  13.3%
  

  36.7%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Donald A. Wollheim

  Donald Allen Wollheim (1 October 1914 – 2 November 1990) was an American science fiction writer, editor, publisher and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell. A founding member of the Futurians, he was one of the leading influences on the development of science fiction and science fiction fandom in the 20th century United States.

  

  24.4%
  

  22.0%
  

  53.7%
  
•  Eve Arden

  Eve Arden (April 30, 1908 – November 12, 1990) was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she is perhaps best remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging high school teacher in the classic Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in the films Grease and Grease 2.

  

  24.4%
  

  34.1%
  

  41.5%
  
•  Harold Eugene Edgerton

  Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990) was a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is largely credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device. For example; today, the electronic flash is completely associated with the field of photography.

  

  32.4%
  

  20.6%
  

  47.1%
  
•  Jim Henson

  James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990), was one of the most widely known puppeteers in American history and was the creator of The Muppets. He was the leading source behind their long run in the television series Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and films such as The Muppet Movie (1979) and creator of advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth.

  

  32.7%
  

  30.6%
  

  36.7%
  
•  Meir Kahane

  Martin David Kahane also known as Meir Kahane was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli parliament or Knesset.

  

  26.7%
  

  33.3%
  

  40.0%
  
•  Patrick White

  Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian author who was widely regarded as a major English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantage points and a stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

  

  0.0%
  

  50.0%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Peter Wessel Zapffe

  Peter Wessel Zapffe [pronounced ZAP-fe] (December 18, 1899-October 12, 1990) was a Norwegian philosopher, author and mountaineer. He was well known for his somewhat pessimistic view of human existence and his philosophy is widely considered to be pessimistic, much like the earlier work of Arthur Schopenhauer, by whom he was inspired. His thoughts regarding the error of human existence are presented in the essay, The Last Messiah.

  

  100.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Robert Noyce

  Robert Norton Noyce (December 12, 1927 – June 3, 1990), nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968. He is also credited with the invention of the integrated circuit or microchip. While Kilby's invention was six months earlier, neither man rejected the title of co-inventor. Noyce was also a mentor and father-figure to an entire generation of entrepreneurs, including Steve Jobs at Apple, Inc.

  

  36.0%
  

  24.0%
  

  40.0%
  
•  Mary Martin

  Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989.

  

  28.6%
  

  57.1%
  

  14.3%
  
•  Ava Gardner

  Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress. She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared in supporting roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953).

  

  25.0%
  

  75.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Leonard Bernstein

  Leonard Bernstein was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. He was probably best known to the public as the longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic, for conducting concerts by many of the world's leading orchestras, and for writing the music for West Side Story, Candide, Wonderful Town, and On the Town.

  

  11.1%
  

  55.6%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Barbara Stanwyck

  Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. After a short stint as a stage actress, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television.

  

  25.0%
  

  37.5%
  

  37.5%
  
•  Ryan White

  Ryan Wayne White (December 6, 1971 – April 8, 1990) was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States, after being expelled from middle school because of his infection. A hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and, when diagnosed in December 1984, was given six months to live.

  

  100.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Aaron Copland

  Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American nationalist composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers". Copland's music achieved a balance between modern music and American folk styles. The open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape.

  

  0.0%
  

  69.2%
  

  30.8%
  
•  Roald Dahl

  Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Born in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent. He rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors.

  

  50.0%
  

  0.0%
  

  50.0%
  
•  David Stirling

  Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling DSO OBE (15 November, 1915 - 4 November, 1990) was a Scottish laird, mountaineer, World War II British Army officer, and the founder of the Special Air Service.

  

  50.0%
  

  33.3%
  

  16.7%
  
•  Walker Percy

  Walker Percy (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American Southern author whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is best known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age.

  

  42.9%
  

  14.3%
  

  42.9%
  
•  Lev Yashin

  Lev Ivanovich Yashin (22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990) was a Russian-Soviet football goalkeeper, considered by many to be the greatest goalkeeper in the history of the game. He was known for his superior athleticism in goal, imposing stature, amazing reflex saves and inventing the idea of goalkeeper sweeping. Yashin was voted the best goalkeeper of the 20th century by the IFFHS.

  

  12.0%
  

  44.0%
  

  44.0%
  
•  Friedrich Dürrenmatt

  Friedrich Dürrenmatt (January 5, 1921 – December 14, 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theater whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire. One of his leading sentences was: "A story is not finished, until it has taken the worst turn". Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten.

  

  0.0%
  

  100.0%
  

  0.0%
  
•  Greta Garbo

  Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish actress during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its Golden Age. Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award "for her unforgettable screen performances" and in 1999 was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.

  

  25.0%
  

  25.0%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Lawrence Durrell

  Lawrence George Durrell (27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan. It has been posthumously suggested that Durrell never had British citizenship, though more accurately, he became defined as a non-patrial in 1968 due to the amendment to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962.

  

  0.0%
  

  50.0%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Curtis LeMay

  Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906–October 1, 1990) was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective, but also controversial, systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. During the war, he was known for planning and executing a massive bombing campaign against cities in Japan.

  

  22.2%
  

  44.4%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Steen Eiler Rasmussen

  Steen Eiler Rasmussen (1898-1990) was a Danish architect and town-planner, professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and a prolific writer of books and poetry. Like his compatriots Hans Christian Andersen and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen he traveled extensively, and his observations often became basis for his writings. His bibliography (1973) lists 536 items. One of his most important books was London.

  

  0.0%
  

  66.7%
  

  33.3%