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Jack Rollins, legendary talent manager who had long comedy client list, dies at 100

 
Monica Lewis appears May 6, the day after her 93rd birthday, with a black sapphire orchid in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Monica Lewis appears May 6, the day after her 93rd birthday, with a black sapphire orchid in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Published June 20, 2015

Jack Rollins, 100, a manager and a sharp judge of talent who saw more than a gag writer in Woody Allen and believed the improvisations of Robin Williams would crack up audiences, died Thursday in New York. His clients also included Joan Rivers, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Lenny Bruce and the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, an American pantheon of hilarity.

Monica Lewis, 93, the dimpled, diminutive chanteuse who made her Broadway debut as a teenager, taught Americans how to ripen their newly imported bananas as the ubiquitous voice of Miss Chiquita, appeared on the inaugural episode of Ed Sullivan's television variety show in 1948 and durably continued to perform jazz and pop hits for decades, died June 12 in Woodland Hills, Calif.

Nelson Doubleday Jr., 81, who shortly after taking over his family's publishing business used it in 1980 to buy the lowly New York Mets and put the team on course to win the World Series in 1986, died of pneumonia Tuesday in Locust Valley, N.Y. He was the grandson of Frank Nelson Doubleday, who founded the publishing company in 1896. Another Doubleday ancestor was Abner, a great-great-granduncle long credited (erroneously) with inventing baseball.

Frank Zachary, 101, a celebrated magazine editor and art director who pioneered graphic innovations and creative photography while chronicling postwar America's fascination with travel and leisure and the affluent society, died June 12 in East Hampton, N.Y. He was especially known for his work at Modern Photography, Holiday, Travel & Leisure, and Town & Country.

Jane Briggs Hart, 93, a flying enthusiast, would-be astronaut and competitive equestrian and sailor whose outspoken views on women's rights, the Roman Catholic Church and the Vietnam War sometimes made political life a challenge for her husband, Philip A. Hart, a Democratic senator from Michigan in the 1960s and '70s, died June 5 in Bloomfield, Conn. She stood out in Washington at a time when congressional wives were expected to be ornamental.

James Salter, 90, whose intimately detailed novels and short stories kept a small but devoted audience in his thrall for more than half a century, died Friday in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He wrote slowly, exactingly and, by almost every critic's estimation, beautifully. Michael Dirda once observed in the Washington Post that "he can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence." His novels included Light Years, A Sport and a Pastime, All That Is and The Hunters.

Mervin Field, 94, who in 1947 founded the authoritative Field Poll, a mainstay of California and national politics for decades, died of natural causes June 8 in Mill Valley, Calif.

Suleyman Demirel, 90, a leading figure in the public life of Turkey during the last half of the 20th century, whose seven terms as prime minister and one as president won him international recognition as a political survivor, died of a respiratory infection Wednesday in Ankara. He also was known for his efforts to bring democracy and industry to a country that had fallen far behind its European neighbors to the west and was struggling to catch up.

>> Roger Verge, 85, one of the first superstar chefs whose light, fresh and artfully plated food turned his restaurant near Cannes, France, into a landmark of French gastronomy and a beacon of nouvelle cuisine, died June 5 in Mougins. His Le Moulin de Mougins earned three Michelin stars, the highest rating, within five years of its 1969 opening. He emphasized the natural flavors of food, ignoring rules that had defined French cuisine for a century.