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The 12.26.21 Issue — The Lives They Lived

Highlights

  1. Photo
    Credit

    The Lives They Lived

    Remembering some of the artists, innovators and thinkers we lost in the past year.

     By The New York Times Magazine

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    Colin L. Powell in 2007.
    CreditMartin Schoeller/AUGUST

    Colin Powell’s Life as a Tinkerer

    He was a lifelong fixer of problems, but George W. Bush was the one he couldn’t solve.

     By Robert Draper

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    DMX in New York, 1998.
    CreditJonathan Mannion

    DMX Took a Trust Fall With His Music

    He bore the kind of pain Black men rarely get to air in public, hoping that transparency would manifest the tenderness he desired.

     By Ismail Muhammad

  1. Willie Garson Found a Home Playing the Canonical ‘Gay Best Friend’

    In a media climate when gay characters were usually flat, he found a playful middle ground.

    By Jamie Lauren Keiles

     

  2. Melvin Van Peebles Had a Hunger for Intensity

    The artist filled his “Blue Room” with scenes from everyday life and turned them into sculptures.

    By Amy X. Wang

     

  3. Chucky Thompson Found Music Everywhere

    He helped a league of artists figure out how to sound royal and still grounded.

    By Niela Orr

     

  4. Christopher Plummer’s ‘Strange Loyalties’

    Even after “The Sound of Music,” he believed his true calling was on the classical stage.

    By Anthony Giardina

     

  5. 2021 Was the Deadliest Year on Record for Trans Folks. Kiér Was Only 21.

    “She was figuring it out,” said Kiér Laprí Kartier’s best friend. “But she never got to finish figuring it out.”

    By Jenna Wortham

     

  6. Mary Wilson Refused to Let the Supremes Fall Apart

    She was not in the spotlight, but she was the one who kept them together.

    By Hanif Abdurraqib

     

  7. Norm Macdonald Had His Own Kind of Honesty

    He became a comedian’s comedian by bucking the conventions of our confessional age.

    By David Marchese

     

  8. Lauren Berlant Helped Us Understand the Intimacy of Pop Culture

    They pioneered a theory for our messy emotional lives.

    By Jane Hu

     

  9. James Hormel Used His Spam Fortune to Cement a Place in Gay History

    He gave more than $15 million to L.G.B.T.Q. causes over his life and was appointed ambassador to Luxembourg, which caused a Senate standoff.

    By Jason Zengerle

     

  10. Cloris Leachman’s Golden Age Was Middle Age

    She was an actor for almost 80 years, winning Emmys into her 70s.

    By Rob Hoerburger