Celebrities and global icons who died in 2022
However, it was in the 1970s that he became a household name, playing DS George Carter, of the Metropolitan Police’s flying squad, in The Sweeney; the series, co-starring John Thaw, was one of the most successful of the era. A year after it ended, however, he was cast in an even bigger TV hit: Minder. For almost ten years, he played Terry McCann, the hapless ex-con employed by George Cole’s used car salesman Arthur Daley. When Minder finished, he returned to the stage for a few years. He played the Soho barfly in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell, and Alfred Doolittle in a West End revival of My Fair Lady.
Vangelis – 17 May
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Early in his career, he was in a hit band with Demis Roussos; later, he wrote the score for Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic Blade Runner. But Vangelis, who died aged 79, will be remembered for the soaring music he wrote for the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, said The Daily Telegraph.
Vangelis’s theme for Chariots topped the charts in the United States, said The Times, but his score for Blade Runner, with its sinister evocation of a dystopian Los Angeles, was arguably even more influential. His later film scores included those for 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Alexander (2004). He also wrote music for ballet, for Nasa, for the European Space Agency, and for Stephen Hawking’s memorial service.
Hilary Devey – 11 June
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Hilary Devey, who has died aged 65, became famous when she joined Dragons’ Den, the TV show in which budding entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of multimillionaire investors. A businesswoman who’d got to the top in the traditionally masculine world of freight and logistics, Devey was only on the show for about a year, yet she made a lasting impression, owing to her no-nonsense approach, gravelly voice and distinctive appearance.
In the mid-1990s, Devey founded her own freight distribution business, Pall-Ex. Her bank manager had refused her a loan, so she’d sold her house and her car to finance the company. The first couple of years were tough but before long, she had become a millionaire; and 20 years later, Pall-Ex had an annual turnover of £100m.
Devey made her first TV appearance on The Secret Millionaire, living incognito on a housing estate in Rochdale. She’d seen poverty as a child, she said, but this was of a different order. That led to more media appearances, and to her stint on Dragons’ Den.
Dame Deborah James – 28 June
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Dame Deborah James was a teacher, campaigner and podcast host who became known to the public as “Bowelbabe”. At the age of 35, the mother of two had been diagnosed with stage-4 bowel cancer; she was told that only 35% of patients at that stage live another year, and only 8% are alive in five years. The odds were terrible; but James was determined not to be a victim, said The Times.
Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/society/959062/celebrities-and-global-icons-who-died-in-2022