Audrey Hepburn would be 82. Some proclaimed her an "off-beat" or "unconventional" beauty---a rather puzzling assessment, in that one look at her brings to mind the great beauties of classical art. The Belgian-born Hepburn was unerringly graceful and possessed a natural poise and elegance that translated to the screen beautfully. In 1999, she was voted the #3 Greatest American Film Legend (behind Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn...no relation) of all time. Her roster of luminous performances is not particularly long, but contains some very prominent films: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Wait Until Dark, Funny Face, Roman Holiday, Sabrina. It seems that the "Hepburn touch" was nearly all that a film needed to raise it from mediocrity to something quite special. The world mourned her passing (of cancer of the appendix) in 1993--she was only 63. Here's a lovely photo tribute to her:
Keith Haring would be 53. He was one of the first (and only) artists of his generation to truly "break out" with a recognizable style all his own. In the 1980's, his modernistic, graffiti-art wall mural style seemed to suddenly be everywhere, from clothing to advertising to galleries. His simple "Radiating Baby" (above) became his logo/symbol. His was one of the most prominent celebrity deaths during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when he died at the age of 31 in 1990.
