Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday, June 13, 2008, after suffering a heart attack at the bureau. He was 58.

Russert
was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” broadcast when he collapsed. He was rushed to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, where resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.

A man who had his priorities in order--religion, family, and work--in that sequence. 
Will "Meet The Press" ever be the same again?

Every year,
there are the big-name deaths, and they tend to come in two varieties.
There are those like Heath Ledger's. They are sharp shocks that make
you reflect on what a tightrope this thread of life can be. You wince
at the loss of promise. Then there are those like Paul Newman's. They
are more of a slow, steady ache as you mark the chapters in your life
by the parts played and realize that the world has, in a small but
important and irrevocable way, changed. It is no longer a world in
which Paul Newman, Bo Diddley or George Carlin live.
But in a
way, the big deaths are easy. Think about the deaths of Tim Russert and
Charlton Heston. They received so much attention, so much coverage, it
was as if you could out-source the experience. The media grieves so you
don't have to.
Like every year, 2008 was full of deaths of all
shapes and sizes. And if you haven't been paying attention and keeping
score – and let's hope you haven't – then some of the names jump out as
you scan the list of those who won't be joining us in 2009.
There's Roy Scheider, always so tough and cool. Whether you remember him as the hydrophobic sheriff in Jaws,
wheeling around to tell the squint-eyed Quint, "We're gonna need a
bigger boat," or as the choreographer who flirted with the lovely
damsel death in All That Jazz, chances are you'll remember him.
Some of the names will spark an "I still can't believe he's dead"
response, such as Sydney Pollack, the director who had just been so
great in another acting role with Michael Clayton. Some will
spark more of an "I can't believe he was still alive" reaction, as with
the passing of famed science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, the man
who first imagined 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Celebrities
have many roles in life, but in death they serve a single purpose. They
are time markers. You see the name and somewhere inside your memory, a
button is pushed and a reel of images and feelings unspool. In what's
impossible not to recognize as a gathering trend, 2008 was a year full
of such time markers for Boomers.
The name Allan Melvin might
not mean much to you, but how about Sam the Butcher, Alice's longtime
and commitment-shy boyfriend from The Brady Bunch? And how about Harvey Korman, the Michael Jordan of the Carol Burnett Show troupe, the funniest part of Blazing Saddles, the voice of the Great Gazoo? Or Paul Benedict, the uptight British neighbor on The Jeffersons?
Big
or small, world-famous or personally important, we take a moment as we
leave the old and step into the new, to say goodbye and thank you.
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