While many notable deaths occurred during 2024, we were left with a myriad of personal branding tips. Join me in learning from the legacies of these ten individuals.
BOB NEWHART
Whenever comedians are mentioned, one name has stood the test of time. Bob Newhart died at the age of 94 on July 18th. Since my Dad was a CPA, Bob was a favorite in my house due to his previous occupation as an accountant. Perhaps, my Dad had dreams of being a comedian, or perhaps, he simply appreciated Bob's dry wit as a stand-up comedian. Whatever the case, "The Bob Newhart Show" and later "Newhart" were must-watch television in my house. And then, the way that the final episode of "Newhart" harkened back to the original series! Sheer genius! If you haven't seen it, check it out! According to the CPA Journal, "Newhart leaves blanks and pauses in his one-person phone routines to try to get his audience actively involved. This style could only come from an accountant." He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in 1993, and in 1996, TV Guide ranked him number 17 of the 50 greatest TV stars of all time.
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: While your career choice may not be clear to others, your talent may stand out - and make you a star. Bob Newhart proved this!
BETTE NASH
The aviation world mourned the loss of Bette Nash, a Washington, D.C.-based flight attendant who died after spending nearly seven decades serving passengers in the skies — and making history along the way. She began her career with the now-defunct Eastern Airlines at age 21 in 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower was President. At the time, flights between New York and D.C. cost $12 and "stewardesses," as they were called, served lobster on platters and passed out cigarettes on board. According to NPR, "The industry changed drastically during Nash's tenure, especially with the introduction of technology (no more handwritten tickets, for example). American Airlines eventually took over some of Eastern's routes. But, as she said at a celebration of her 60 years of service in 2017, the joys of the job remained, "My favorite part of flying over the years has been greeting my passengers as they board and deplane. People really are fascinating and it’s truly been a joy." Nash became an increasingly recognizable fixture on American Airlines flights in recent years — particularly on shuttle flights between Washington and Boston. She earned the Guinness World Record for longest-serving flight attendant in 2022, by which point she had been working for more than 64 years."
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: If you find a job that you love, it becomes a labor of love, rather than simply a job. Bette Nash proved that!
LILLY LEDBETTER
Lilly Ledbetter, whose gender pay equity legal fight was the inspiration for the Fair Pay Act of 2009, died at age 86 in October.
According to CNN, "In the 1990's, after 19 years of working for Goodyear, Ledbetter learned she had been making thousands of dollars less each month than male managers. She sued Goodyear in 1999 for gender discrimination. She initially won in federal court in 2003 and was awarded $3.8 million in backpay and damages. The decision was later overturned after the tire giant appealed. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court in 2007, which upheld the lower court's ruling. In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled Ledbetter should have filed suit within 180 days of the very first time Goodyear paid her less than her peers. Having missed that window, Ledbetter had no grounds to sue, according to the court."
When Barack Obama became President, the first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ledbetter said in 2018, "That was the most awesome emotion I think that I have ever had. I'll put it behind having a son and a daughter." In retirement Ledbetter became an activist and advocate for gender equity.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) described her: "Lilly Ledbetter simply wanted to be paid the same as her male Goodyear coworkers – and her fight took her to the Supreme Court, Congress, and the White House to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She was a true hero."
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on social media that Ledbetter's simple phrase "equal pay for equal work" had changed his understanding. He said, "It's shocking that, as a CEO, I witnessed firsthand how wide the pay disparities were – not just in my own company, but across so many others we acquired. Lilly taught me the fight for equality starts with pay equity. There can be no true equality without it."
As of 2024, for every dollar a man earns, a woman is paid 84 cents, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity and the Equal Pay Today campaign. That's based on earnings data for full-time, year-round workers from the US Census in 2022, which was the most recent full-year data set available.
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: In Ledbetter's own words: "That I never gave up and I did make a difference. In fact, I told my pastor, when he does my funeral, that's the last line I want...She made a difference."
SHARE THIS: The hashtag #EmbraceAmbition means to me: Being respectful of and supporting everyone's ambitions equally. ~Lilly Ledbetter #PersonalBranding #DebbieLaskeysBlog
WALLY AMOS
According to Biography, "Wallace WALLY Amos Jr., the man behind the Famous Amos cookies brand, has died. The 88-year-old was surrounded by family, who said the cause of death was complications from dementia. Amos was best known for the cookie brand he started in 1975 and sold in 1988. But before his entrepreneurial days, he was the first Black talent agent for William Morris Agency. While there, he discovered Simon & Garfunkel. Amos spent his later years developing additional cookie companies, a muffin brand, and promoting children's literacy.
In 1967, Amos moved to Los Angeles, where he struggled to set up his own personal management company. Burdened with the debt of his failing business, Amos began to take comfort in baking chocolate chip cookies. He started bringing cookies along to business meetings. With financial backing from singers like Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy as well as an innovative marketing initiative that included an extensive advertising campaign and a gala grand opening, the first Famous Amos cookie store opened on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in March 1975. (I vividly recall visiting that location often in my youth!) Within months, 38-year-old Amos had opened two more West Coast locations, and the New York–based Bloomingdale's department store had begun selling the cookies.
Outside of his entrepreneurial work, Amos traveled as a motivational speaker and dedicated himself to ending illiteracy in the United States. He worked with organizations such as Read to Me International, the YMCA, and Literacy Volunteers of America, serving as the group's national spokesperson from 1979 until 2002. President George H.W. Bush presented him with the Literacy Award in 1991. He even had a reading room at his cookie shop in Hawaii, where he relocated in 1977. Wearing a watermelon hat, he read to children at his shop on Saturdays."
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: If, after a long career, you end up being the symbol of something that everyone loves, then that's okay. Wally Amos may have been the symbol of a chocolate chip cookie, but it was a yummy cookie!
PHIL DONAHUE
According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Phil Donahue, the talk show innovator who changed the conversation and the course of daytime television with the weekday program he hosted for nearly three decades, has died. He was 88. According to his family, he died at his New York City home following a long illness. Survivors include his wife of 44 years, "That Girl" star Marlo Thomas. They met when she was a guest on his show — he was a divorced single father living with and raising his four sons at the time — before marrying in May 1980. The Cleveland, Ohio-native hosted more than 6,000 iterations of "The Phil Donahue Show," from the first, broadcast from a Dayton, Ohio station on November 7, 1967, through the last, seen nationwide on syndication via Multimedia Entertainment, on September 13, 1996.
Donahue addressed contemporary and controversial topics and invited his studio audience to participate, carrying his microphone into the crowd. He became adept at interweaving their questions and remarks with his own commentary.
The issue-oriented approach was novel, and his topics — abortion, incest, artificial insemination, alcoholism, penile implants, homosexuality, same-sex couples raising children and priests' pedophilia, to name just a few — proved cutting-edge, making his show notorious and popular.
Donahue had things pretty much all to himself until 1985, when Oprah Winfrey launched her own talk show. He said, "It's just not possible to overstate the enormousness of her impact on the daytime television game. It was staggering." (She would dethrone him atop the ratings in 1987.)
After he had turned 60 and received 11 Daytime Emmy's, Donahue called it quits in 1996, and Winfrey presented him with a Lifetime Achievement honor. She said, "I want to thank you for opening the door so wide, wide enough for me to walk through. Had there not been a Phil Donahue, I don't believe there could have been an Oprah." In May 2024, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden."
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: Never be afraid of trying new things or new ways to tackle issues. Phil Donahue did just that, and in the process, ushered in an entirely new era of television talk shows.
CHARLES OSGOOD
According to CBS News, "Award-winning journalist Charles Osgood, who anchored "CBS Sunday Morning" for 22 years and was host of the long-running radio program "The Osgood File," died at age 91 in January 2024. He was a gifted news writer, poet, and author, and spent 45 years at CBS News before retiring in September 2016. Osgood began anchoring "CBS Sunday Morning" in 1994. During his run on the show it reached its highest ratings levels in three decades, and three times earned the Daytime Emmy as Outstanding Morning Program...And for almost 46 years, he wrote and hosted "The Osgood File," written radio commentaries on the day's news, broadcast up to four times a day, five days a week, that were occasionally rhymed. For each edition, which aired on stations around the country, he signed off with the familiar "I'll see you on the radio" – a phrase he carried over to his TV duties hosting "CBS Sunday Morning."
He explained, "Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. There's nothing that can't be improved by making it shorter and better."
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: When you're good at something, you can do it for a very long time, as Charles Osgood proved.
JEANINE EPPER
According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Jeannie Epper, the peerless, fearless stunt performer who doubled for Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman and swung on a vine across a 350-foot gorge and propelled down an epic mudslide as Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, died at age 83 in May. Just one member of a dynasty of stunt performers that Steven Spielberg dubbed the "Flying Wallendas of Film" — starting with her father, John Epper, there were four generations of Eppers in show business since the 1930's — she worked on 150-plus films and TV shows during an amazing 70-year career. She put herself in harm's way for Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels, for Lindsay Wagner on The Bionic Woman, for Angie Dickinson on Police Woman, for Jessica Walter in Play Misty for Me (1971), for Jill Clayburgh in Silver Streak (1976) and for Nancy Allen in RoboCop (1987)."
Wonder Woman TV actress Lynda Carter wrote that she and Epper in the 1970's were "united in the way that women had to be in order to thrive in a man's world, through mutual respect, intellect and collaboration. Jeannie was a vanguard who paved the way for all other stuntwomen who came after. Just as Diana was Wonder Woman, Jeannie Epper was also a Wonder Woman.”
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: Often, it's important to ignore stereotypes and simply follow your dream - as Jeanine Epper did!
IRIS APFEL
Iris Apfel, the US businesswoman, interior designer, fashion designer, and actress, died at age 102 at her Palm Beach home in March. According to the BBC, "The matriarch of maximalism has died at aged 102. 'More is more, and less is a bore' was her mantra, and her unique style and wisdom brought joy and inspiration to many. "I like big and bold and a lot of pizzazz." Apfel remained perennially young at heart, in her own words "the world's oldest living teenager."
She's instantly recognizable: sitting amid a confection of canary yellow frills, or with a ton of costume jewelry around her neck. A different scintillating look for every day and occasion – but what didn't change for decades was her immaculate silver bouffant hairdo, coral-red lips, and huge spectacles – a black-rimmed infinity symbol broader than her face.
Apfel's talent as a hot style innovator showed up in her 20s, such as when she spotted and adopted a garment that was to take the fashion world by storm (and hasn't stopped): jeans. We may imagine denim cool was invented by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953), or Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1961), but Apfel was ahead of these Hollywood stars. "In the '40s I was probably the first woman to wear jeans."
The world sat up to acknowledge her as a star, with a lifetime of building a brand based around herself, and she was soon sought after to sell everything from cars to tech startups. In 2018 she modelled for Vogue; and Mattel made a silver-haired Barbie in her name. Apfel's popularity is perhaps a sign of the times. In recent decades older celebrity fashion models, like Carmen Dell'Orefice, 92, and Daphne Selfe, 95, are increasingly held up as glamorous, relevant and sought after.
Photographer Ari Seth Cohen, who featured her in his documentary Advanced Style, on fashionable New Yorkers aged 60 to 100, described how Apfel promotes "personality and personal expression rather than a youthful idea of perfection and beauty."
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: Iris Apfel was the epitome of being unique, and she was incredibly successful and happy by being herself!
SHARE THIS: I like big and bold and a lot of pizzazz. ~Iris Apfel #PersonalBranding #DebbieLaskeysBlog
WILLIE MAYS
One doesn't need to be a fan of the San Francisco Giants to be a fan of Willie Mays. Long considered to be one of the best all-around players in the history of baseball, Mays passed away in June. According to Leo Durocher (a former Dodgers manager), "If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases, and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you in the eye and say Willie was better." On Mays' Baseball Hall of Fame page, "In 1954, in Game 1 of the World Series against the Cleveland Indians, tied 2-2 in the top of the 8th inning with runners on first and second and no outs, Vic Wertz hit a towering drive that would have been a home run in most parks. Mays, playing shallow center field, took off and ran with his back to the ball, caught it over the shoulder an estimated 460 feet from the plate, turned, and fired. The Giants won the game and the World Series. "The Catch" is considered by many to be one of the greatest defensive plays in history." On a personal note, my father, despite being a lifelong Dodgers fan from age 7, was also a lifelong Willie Mays fan. Talk about the power of personal branding!
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: When your accomplishments are amazing, they stand out on their own!
JIMMY CARTER
Former President Jimmy Carter passed away on December 29th at the age of 100. Born in 1924, James Earl Carter Jr. was an American politician and humanitarian who served from 1977 to 1981 as the 39th President of the United States.
According to President Joe Biden, "President Carter was an extraordinary leader, statesma, and humanitarian. Over six decades, we had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend. But what's extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well. With Carter's compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us. He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe."
Biden thanked the Carter family and staff and told "young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility."
Habitat for Humanity will forever be linked to Carter, because since 1984, the Carter Work Project took the former first couple across the United States and around the world to 14 countries, where he helped to build, renovate, or repair more than 4,300 houses alongside more than 100,000 volunteers.
PERSONAL BRANDING TIP: Dedication to one's ideals can, and do, make a difference. In Carter's own words, "I have one life and one chance to make it count for something...My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference."
What else did you learn from those we lost during 2024? Chime in and share.
Image Credits: CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images (Bob Newhart), AP Photo/Lennox McLendon (Fernando Valenzuela), and Tory Burch Foundation (Lilly Ledbetter).
Click to read an interview with equal pay activist Lilly Ledbetter:
Click to read "A Spectacle in Glasses" about Iris Apfel:
https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/iris-apfel-eccentricity
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