Terry Gross

Operatic tenor Wayne Conner was an classical-music radio personality as well as a teacher at The Curtis Institute of Music, The Academy of Vocal Arts and the Peabody Institute. For 30 years, he also produced and hosted WHYY's "Singer's World" and "Collector's Corner." Connor died May 9 of liver cancer at the age of 79.

Former Philadelphia Museum of Art director Anne D'Harnoncourt brought the museum new prominence, spearheading the renovation of 20 galleries and a build-up of its modern-art collection. She died June 1 at the age of 64.

Film director and actor Sydney Pollack died Monday. He was 73. Pollack is known for his many films including Out of Africa, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Chris Gaffney, vocalist and accordion player for the Hacienda Brothers, died last week from liver cancer at the age of 57.

The celebrated Irish memoirist, who had been battling lung cancer, died May 9. Her 1996 memoir — about growing up poor in the Ireland of the '40s and '50s — became a best-seller. Terry Gross talked to her in 2001.

Academy Award-winning actor Charlton Heston died Saturday at the age of 84. Heston, who starred in epic films such as Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments, later made a name for himself as a conservative activist.

Jules Dassin, an American filmmaker who worked in Europe for nearly 30 years, died this week in Athens, Greece. He left the U.S. in the early 1950s, blacklisted for his youthful membership in the Communist Party.

Writer, director and Oscar winner Anthony Minghella died of a brain hemorrhage Tuesday at age 54. Minghella's screen credits include The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain.

William F. Buckley, Jr., died Wednesday. He was 82. Fresh Air remembers the founder and longtime editor of the National Review with excerpts from a 1989 interview.