Famous In Life, Noted In Passing

Norman Mailer, 84 Whatever you thought of him, he never dodged a risk—writing novels about Jesus, Hitler and ancient Egypt, getting the killer Jack Henry Abbott out of prison, running for mayor of New York. Or a controversy: over race, war, feminism. His best book? His 1948 debut, "The Naked and the Dead"? One of his Pulitzer Prize winners—"The Armies of the Night" (1968) or "The Executioner's Song" (1979)? Something else? None? We'll never stop arguing about him. He would have loved that.

Yvonne De Carlo, 84 She played Moses' wife in "The Ten Commandments" and debuted Sondheim's "I'm Still Here" on Broadway. But for boomers, her primary address will always be 1313 Mockingbird Lane, c/o "The Munsters."

Kurt Waldheim, 88 A two-term U.N. secretary- general, he ran (successfully) for president of Austria in 1985—and critics found he'd misrepresented his service as a Nazi officer. A committee of historians concluded he'd known about war crimes but didn't participate. In a posthumously disclosed letter, he fessed up to "mistakes"; only Syria and Japan laid wreaths at his funeral.

Leona Helmsley, 87 A staple of New York gossip columns, the real-estate and hotel mogul never lived down her billing as "the Queen of Mean"—or her 1989 conviction for tax evasion, which got her 16 months. In her will she left $12 million to her white Maltese. The dog's name? Trouble.

Marcel Marceau, 84 The greatest of classical mimes. [Chalk-white face, top hat with red flower. Hunts invisible butterflies with invisible net. Struggles against invisible wind. Performs"Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death": folds into embryo, gets up, strides stage, crumples, folds.] The rest really is silence.

Brooke Astor, 105 A sparkling socialite who danced at parties well into her 90s, she dispensed nearly $200 million from a foundation left by her third husband, Vincent Astor, to cultural and social-service organizations. Her last years, spent in seclusion with dementia, were tainted by a scandal targeting her only child, Anthony Marshall, over her care and finances. He's been charged with fraud.