The Year in Review: Influential People Who Died in 2023

FILE - Yevgeny Prigozhin is shown on April 8, 2023. From a hot dog vendor to head of the mercenary army Wagner Group, Prigozhin's rise through Russian society came to a sudden end when the plane carrying him and others mysteriously exploded on Aug 23, 2023. FILE - Guitarist Jeff Beck performs at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 18, 2010 in New York. The guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll died Jan. 10, 2023, after contracting bacterial meningitis,” representatives said. FILE - Italian film icon Gina Lollobrigida poses near a wall of celebrity photos in her villa in southern Rome December 7, 2006. FILE - Motown's Barrett Strong arrives at the induction ceremony for 35th annual National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York on June 10, 2004. FILE - President of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf salutes on April 9, 2002, at a rally in Lahore, Pakistan. Raquel Welch at the world premiere of The Flight of the Phoenix, at the Carlton Theatre, Haymarket in London, Jan. 20, 1966. FILE - Richard Belzer attends the premiere of "Mistaken For Strangers" during the opening night of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival on April 17, 2013, in New York. FILE - Gerard Latortue attends the 11th general conference of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization at the Austria Center in Vienna, Nov. 28, 2005. FILE - Actor Tom Sizemore arrives at the premiere of 'The Expendables 3,' in Los Angeles, Aug. 11, 2014. FILE - Robert Blake speaks in April 1977 in Los Angeles. Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted of murdering his wife, died March 9, 2023, at age 89. FILE - Pat Schroeder speaks to a reporter during an interview at the Los Angeles Convention Center on April 30, 1999. FILE - Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, speaks at the 'Nissan Leaf The New Owner's Meeting' in Tokyo on March 18, 2012. FILE - Benjamin Ferencz, Romanian-born American lawyer and chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg war crimes trials, speaks during an opening ceremony for the exhibition commemorating the Nuremberg war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany, Nov. 21, 2010. FILE - Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee attends an event to honor veteran contributors of MAD Magazine at the Savannah College of Art and Design and the National Cartoonists Society on Oct. 11, 2011 in Savannah, Ga. FILE - Actor and singer Harry Belafonte poses for a portrait at a New York recording studio, Nov. 1, 2001. FILE - Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, strums backstage at the Westbury Music Fair on Sept. 8, 1987, in Westbury, N.Y. Canada's legendary folk singer-songwriter, whose hits include “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," died on May 1, 2023. FILE - Jim Brown, Hall of Fame running back for the Cleveland Browns, is shown in action against the New York Giants in Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 14, 1965. The NFL legend, actor and social activist died at his Los Angeles home on May 18, 2023. He was 87. Tina Turner died May 24, 2023. FILE –Deputy Prime Minister of Greece proceeds during a commercial agreement signing ceremony at the foreign ministry in Athens, June 15, 2010. A 1998 photo of Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who was sentence to life in prison for spying for the Soviet Union and later Russia. FILE - This June 21, 1996, photo shows Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski. FILE - Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, Dec. 16, 2010. FILE - Hong Kong singer Coco Lee performs during a mini concert as celebrating an opening ceremony of a new hotel in Hong Kong, Aug. 19, 2005. Coco Lee, a Hong Kong-born singer who had a highly successful career in Asia, died July 5, 2023. FILE - Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor performs on the first night of the Toender Folk Music Festival in Toender, Denmark, Aug. 23, 2013. O’Connor has died at 56, her family said July 26, 2023. FILE - Ada Deer, assistant Interior Secretary for Indian Affairs, meets reporters at the Interior Department, Sept. 7, 1995, in Washington. Deer, an esteemed Native American leader from Wisconsin and the first woman to lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs, died at age 88. FILE - Game show host Bob Barker, 83, waves goodbye as he tapes his final episode of "The Price Is Right" in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 6, 2007. FILE - Singer Jimmy Buffett is shown on Nov. 7, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Buffett popularized beach bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song “Margaritaville” and turned that celebration of loafing into an empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions. FILE — Controversial South African politician and traditional minister of South Africa's large Zulu ethnic group, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, in traditional dress March 26, 2009. Saad Eddin Ibrahim died Sept. 29, 2023. FILE - Hughes Van Ellis, a Tulsa Race Massacre survivor and World War II veteran, left, takes a pastry from a tray held by attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, right, as he waits in a horse-drawn carriage for a protest march, May 28, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. FILE - Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari attends a luncheon of political journalists, in Helsinki on Feb.16, 2016. FILE - Then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang waves during a press conference after the closing session of the National People's Congress in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 15, 2019. FILE - Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is shown before administering the oath of office to members of the Texas Supreme Court in Austin, Texas, on Jan. 6, 2003. FILE - Andre Braugher poses after winning an Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie for his work on "Thief" during the 58th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Aug. 27, 2006. FILE - Kamar de los Reyes on Dec. 7, 2012. De los Reyes, a television, movie and voice actor best known for playing a gang member-turned-cop in the soap “One Life to Live” and a villain in the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops II," died Dec. 24, 2023, in Los Angeles at 56. This picture taken on December 23, 2023 shows South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun arriving at a police station in Incheon for his police questioning over his alleged use of marijuana and other psychoactive drugs.

Yevgeny Prigozhin rose from being an ex-con and hot dog vendor to winning lucrative Kremlin contracts and heading a formidable mercenary army. But it all came to a sudden end when the private plane carrying him and others mysteriously exploded over Russia.