William "Bill" Basch, a retired Los Angeles garment industry executive who was one of the Holocaust survivors whose stories were told in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Last Days," has died. (Today)

Art D'Lugoff, who was widely regarded as the dean of New York nightclub impresarios and whose storied spot, the Village Gate, was for more than 30 years home to performers as celebrated, and diverse, as Duke Ellington, Allen Ginsberg and John Belushi, died on Wednesday at a New York City hospital. He was 85 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. (Today)

Shel Dorf, a prominent comic-book collector who instigated the founding of the pop-culture showcase in San Diego now known as Comic-Con, has died. He was 76. (Today)

John Dennis Ursu believed a quick wit and sense of humor could lighten almost any situation. (Yesterday)

Dr. Cynthia Ayers, a trailblazing Pittsburgh physician who broke down barriers of race and gender in the medical profession and in 2007 became the first woman to receive the Physician of the Year Award from Gateway Medical Society, died Wednesday. She was 67. (11/06/2009)