Alex Traub

A storyteller of modern America’s underbelly with a literary, ruminative style, he inspired a Ryan Gosling movie and earned critical acclaim.

In the ’70s, New York’s bohemia was devoted to hostile yet arty rock. Mr. Smith had two qualities rare in the scene: personal and musical understatement.

She came up with the term as the title of a 1990 conference but saw its later popularity as a little superficial.

After making the journey from prewar Germany to Madison Avenue opulence, she gave her name to one of New York’s most influential indie cinemas.

The group could be heard on the soundtracks of the movies “Patriot Games” and “The Last of the Mohicans.” Its “Theme From Harry’s Game,” from a TV series, was a hit.

She and her husband, Marcus Lamb, founded Daystar Television Network, which reached more than 200 countries and made the couple into televangelism stars.

As a rising star of the 1960s, she dated Paul Simon, brooded with Nick Drake and drew Barbra Streisand’s envy. Then she sank into an abusive marriage.

After nearly nine years of practice, he made John Milton’s epic poem vividly dramatic for audiences and inspired a study of his “memory virtuosity.”

A film crew and illustrator meticulously documented her pirouettes and pouts, giving substance to a character depicted previously as a spotlight onstage.

Instead of home-schooling her daughter, she spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an idiosyncratic educational institution in the Hamptons.