The RIP Thread

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist and presidential candidate, dies at 84
His success in the 1984 and 1988 Democratic primaries ushered in a new era in Democratic Party politics.
By David Cohen
02/17/2026 05:10 AM EST
Updated: 02/17/2026 06:58 AM EST


Maureen Keating/CQ Roll Call via AP

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights activist known for his rousing oratory who became the first African American candidate to have a plausible path to winning the presidency, has died. He was 84.

Because of declining health, Jackson stepped down as the leader of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in July 2023. In the summer of 2024, as Democrats gathered to back Kamala Harris’ candidacy, Jackson received a standing ovation when he was wheeled on stage at the party’s convention in Chicago.

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” Jackson’s family said in a statement Tuesday morning.

The Baptist minister pulled in 3.3 million votes in the 1984 Democratic primaries and 6.9 million in the 1988 contests, drawing far more votes than any Black candidate had at that point in U.S. history and making his Rainbow Coalition a legitimate force in the Democratic Party. He also carved a transformative grassroots path through the primaries that would be emulated in various forms by other candidates in Democratic primaries over the years, including Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, who would go on to realize Jackson’s ambition of becoming the first Black president.

“People forget about this,” Sanders, the Vermont senator, said in 2015 before the Iowa caucuses, “but Barack Obama would not be president today if Jesse Jackson didn’t come to Iowa. That was a guerrilla-type campaign that clearly didn’t have resources but had incredible energy.”

Jackson particularly appealed to minority voters who had long been underrepresented or totally ignored. “When I look out at this convention,” he told the 1988 Democratic National Convention, “I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black and white. We are all precious in God’s sight — the real rainbow coalition.”

Jackson’s positions occasionally put him at odds with longtime Democratic voters, but his campaigns galvanized some people who detested mainstream politics.

“Even though he did not win the Democratic Party presidential nomination,” Marxist activist Angela Davis wrote in an introduction to her autobiography, “Jesse Jackson conducted a truly triumphant campaign, one that confirmed and further nurtured progressive thought patterns among the people of our country.”


Dennis Cook/AP

Before his presidential bids, Jackson was a civil rights activist and organizer who worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and founded Operation PUSH, an organization designed to improve economic opportunities for Black people and other minorities.

In later years, Jackson was an all-purpose activist, jumping from crisis to crisis with seemingly boundless energy. He‘d be enthusiastically welcomed in impoverished neighborhoods that terrified others, in difficult situations that no other politician wanted any part of. His impact was also felt internationally, particularly as a supporter of Nelson Mandela and those who worked to topple apartheid in South Africa.

“Jackson had come to see himself as America’s racial traffic cop and ambassador. All racial cases seemed to flow eventually to Jesse Jackson — as he preferred. If they didn’t, he often flowed to them,” wrote Mike Kelly in “Color Lines: The Troubled Dreams of Racial Harmony in an American Town,” his 1995 book.

Activism was his life’s blood. “Gandhi had to act. Mandela had to act. Dr. King had to march,” Jackson said in a Chicago speech in 2002. “Dr. King suffered and sacrificed. We must honor that tradition. We must use the pitter-patter of our marching feet and go forward.”

Aiming to inspire, Jackson frequently recited variations of a poem called “I am — Somebody!” written in the 1950s by the Rev. William Holmes Borders Sr.

On “Sesame Street“ in 1972, Jackson began: “I am. Somebody! I am. Somebody! I may be poor. But I am. Somebody. I may be young, But I am. Somebody.“ The children on the PBS show shouted the words back at him. They were neither the first nor the last to do so.


Francis Chung/POLITICO

Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a high school student. “Born in a three-room house, bathroom in the backyard, slop jar by the bed, no hot and cold running water,” he told the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

“Jesse Jackson is my third name. I’m adopted,” he said in that speech. “When I had no name, my grandmother gave me her name. My name was Jesse Burns until I was 12. So I wouldn’t have a blank space, she gave me a name to hold me over. I understand when nobody knows your name. I understand when you have no name.“

At Greenville’s segregated Sterling High School, he was the class president; in 1960, he took part in a sit-in at the public library. Jackson went to the University of Illinois to play football but transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically Black college where he played quarterback and was elected class president.

After graduating with a degree in sociology, he became an organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and attended the Chicago Theological Seminary. He was ordained as a minister in 1968.

Deeply segregated Chicago was a tough nut to crack, as it was in the grip of an entrenched Democratic Party machine led by Mayor Richard J. Daley. When Jackson arrived, he showed up at the mayor‘s office with a letter of introduction but left empty-handed.

According to “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago” by Chicago journalist Mike Royko: “Daley told him to see his ward committeeman, and if he did some precinct work, rang doorbells, hustled up some votes, there might be a government job for him. Maybe something like taking coins at a tollway booth.”

That was clearly not what Jackson had in mind. Instead, Jackson became the leader of SCLC’s newly created Operation Breadbasket, which pushed businesses located in Black communities to employ Black people and invest in the community. He was also a highly visible presence in King’s Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966.

SCLC veteran Andrew Young later wrote in his autobiography “An Easy Burden": “Jesse’s model for leadership was the traditional Baptist preacher. He was eager for the leadership mantle. We didn’t know exactly what was driving Jesse, but Martin appreciated Jesse’s desire to lead and encouraged it.“

While critical of Jackson’s ambition and ego, Young wrote that Operation Breadbasket “achieved excellent results by bringing economic strength to the black ghetto over a period of several years.”



Charles Kelly/AP

As a Christian activist in the civil rights movement, Jackson said of King: “He was the pilot of the plane, but we were the ground crew.”

On April 4, 1968, Jackson witnessed King’s assassination in Memphis.

King was shot to death as he stood on the balcony of Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel. At that moment, King was talking to Jackson and Memphis musician Ben Branch, who were waiting in the parking lot to join King and others for dinner at the home of the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles.

Jackson claimed to have cradled King in his arms before he died, an assertion at odds with eyewitness accounts. (It was Marrell McCollough who grabbed a towel off a cleaning cart to try to stanch King’s bleeding; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy then took over at King’s side.)

Five days later, Jackson walked with other movement leaders next to the mule-drawn farm wagon that carried King’s casket through the streets of Atlanta to Morehouse College. Abernathy succeeded King atop the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

In 2018, Jackson said King’s assassination still haunted him whenever he returned to Memphis.

“Every time I go back, it pulls a scab off and the wound is still raw,” Jackson told CNN. “Every time, the trauma of the incident. His lying there. Blood everywhere. It hurts all the time.”

Along with Abernathy and the widow Coretta Scott King, Jackson carried on with King’s planned Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice in Washington in the spring of 1968. But the movement became increasingly fragmented.

At odds with Abernathy, Jackson left the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971. “Without King’s powers of mediation and persuasion, rifts had deepened between the two men who inherited the largest pieces of King’s mantle,” Time magazine wrote of them in January 1972.

Jackson then launched a variation of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago called Operation PUSH, which stood for People United to Save (later Serve) Humanity.

“Despite precarious finances,“ James Ralph wrote in “The Encyclopedia of Chicago,” “Operation PUSH was active.”

Ralph added: “It held rousing weekly meetings at its Hyde Park headquarters to energize its supporters, which included both black and white Chicagoans. It pressured major companies to hire more African Americans and to extend business ties with the black community. And in 1976, it launched PUSH-Excel, a program designed to inspire inner-city teenagers across the country to work hard and to stay out of trouble.”

Operation PUSH utilized strategic boycotts, including one of Anheuser-Busch in 1983, designed to increase minority hiring. These boycotts elevated Jackson’s national profile.

Jackson’s organization also spotlighted high-achieving African Americans as role models.

In 1973, for instance, Operation PUSH hosted Hank Aaron as a speaker as the baseball superstar chased the sport’s all-time record for home runs set by Babe Ruth. Aaron biographer Howard Bryant described the scene in “The Last Hero.”

“When we look at Hank,” Jackson said, “there’s something on the outside in his presence that tells us that we can achieve, and because he’s just like us, there’s something on the inside that tells us we deserve to achieve, and if he can, any man can.”



Ira Schwaz/AP

In November 1983, Jackson declared his candidacy for president, becoming the second African American after New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972 to mount a potentially viable major-party bid.

It was only months after Chicago had unexpectedly elected Harold Washington to be the city’s first Black mayor. That election was as mean and ugly as elections get, but Washington’s supporters mounted a vigorous grassroots campaign that overcame systemic racism to win with 51.7 percent of the vote. It became a template for Jackson’s efforts.

Almost immediately, though, Jackson ignited a firestorm when he referred to Jewish people as “Hymie” and New York City as “Hymietown“ in an interview with a Washington Post reporter. Jackson already had critics within the Jewish community, having embraced Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1979 and called Zionism “a poisonous weed,” but his “Hymietown” remarks threatened to derail his fledgling candidacy.

“He was no longer an indication of Black-Jewish problems; he was the problem,” wrote J.J. Goldberg in “Jewish Power.” In February, Jackson apologized at a New Hampshire synagogue, saying: “However innocent and unintended, it was wrong.”

The 1984 Democratic presidential race seemed like it might end quickly, but frontrunner Walter Mondale stumbled in New Hampshire, losing to Colorado Sen. Gary Hart. As the race heated up, Jackson became a factor.

“It means a victory for the boats stuck at the bottom,” he said in May after winning Louisiana.

Jackson ended up with more than 3 million votes and 465 delegates, both well short of Hart and eventual nominee Mondale, but enough to make him a force to be reckoned with. In July, Mondale ruled out picking Jackson as his running mate, citing deep philosophical differences on some issues. (Mondale picked New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro instead.)

The National Rainbow Coalition grew out of the 1984 campaign. Jackson had used the phrase “Rainbow Coalition” for years — Black Panther leader Fred Hampton had launched a group by that name in 1969, months before he was shot to death by Chicago police. Jackson adopted the phrase as part of an effort to broaden his appeal for his next presidential bid. The group would later morph into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.



AP

It soon became clear Jackson would be a much more formidable candidate in 1988.

“Jesse Jackson is a serious candidate for the presidency,” The Nation wrote in April 1988. “He was always serious; it was just the political scientists and the other politicians who belittled his campaign, trivialized his efforts, and disdained his prospects. Despite the contempt and condescension of the media — or perhaps because of it — Jackson went to the most remote and isolated grass roots in the American social landscape to find the strength for a campaign that has already begun to transform politics.”

Among those endorsing him was Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, who helped Jackson win the state’s caucuses.

After early front-runner Hart quickly fell by the wayside because of scandal, five Democrats won primaries in 1988, including Jackson and Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, who took five Southern states each on Super Tuesday in March. But both took a back seat to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who dominated in other regions of the country.

Jackson accumulated 1,219 delegates, second only to Dukakis. He angled unsuccessfully for the vice-presidential slot, but Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen got the nod instead.

“Never surrender, move forward,” Jackson told the Democratic National Convention in support of Dukakis that July in Atlanta. Jackson finished his speech with a repeated exhortation: “Keep hope alive!”

He did not run again in 1992, but ended up playing an important role in the race inadvertently and perhaps unhappily. At a Rainbow Coalition gathering, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton criticized racial remarks made by hip-hop artist Sister Souljah, another featured speaker.

“This planned political stunt,” argued Ibram X. Kendi in his book “Stamped From The Beginning,” showed Clinton was not captive to Jackson’s wing of the party, something that Kendi said “thrilled racist voters.”

Unlike Mondale in 1984 and Dukakis in 1988, Clinton won the general election.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Jackson’s electoral success gave him a platform from which to launch reform efforts around the country and jump into crisis situations wherever and whenever he saw fit. One such case came in Teaneck, New Jersey, in April 1990, when Phillip Pannell, a Black teenager, was shot to death by a white police officer under questionable circumstances. Protests and unrest followed.

Arriving on the scene soon thereafter, Jackson pushed for justice but also tried to dial down tensions.

“When the lights go out, don’t turn on each other,” Jackson urged students at Teaneck High School, according to Kelly’s “Color Lines” book. “In the dark, turn to each other and not on each other, and then wait until morning comes.“

He added: “What is the challenge of your age? Learning to live together.”

Children in need remained a focus of his. “We must invest in the formative years of these children,” Jackson said in 2013. “So we need more than a conversation. We need transportation and education and trade skill training. And that will cost. It will cost more to not do it.”

He did not limit his activism to the United States, at times venturing into hostile lands, meeting with dictators such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to seek the release of prisoners. Perhaps no other American secured the release of so many people trapped in places they didn’t wish to be.

Jackson vigorously opposed apartheid in South Africa, noting the parallels between the American civil rights movement and the efforts to upend the existing order in South Africa.

''Whatever you do to protest this evil system does not go without notice to those it is being done to,” South African Bishop Desmond Tutu told Jackson about his activism in December 1984.



Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Jackson, in his own community, remained a symbol of what was possible. In Derrick Bell’s 1992 book “Faces at the Bottom of the Well,” one of the characters likened the inspirational impact of Jackson in the African American community to that of a Chicago basketball superstar.

“With Jackson still active,” Bell’s character says, “we can expect some more Michael Jordan-type moves, political slam dunks in which he does the impossible and looks good while doing it.”

In December 1995, his son Jesse Jr. was elected to fill a vacancy in Congress from Chicago’s South Side; he resigned in 2012, but sibling Jonathan was elected to a Chicago seat in 2022. For his part, Jesse Jackson never held a government post more significant than his stint as the District of Columbia’s “shadow senator” from 1991 to 1997.

During the 2008 campaign, Jesse Jackson said some unflattering things about Obama, a fellow Chicagoan whom he accused of “talking down to black people.” But on election night, Jackson was seen crying with joy in Chicago’s Grant Park after Obama was elected.

He saw progress but, as always, pushed for more.

“Africans are free but not equal, Americans are free but not equal,” Jackson wrote in 2013 at the time of Mandela’s death.

“Ending apartheid and ending slavery was a big deal, Mandela becoming president of South Africa, [Barack] Obama becoming the first African American president was a big deal, but we have to go deeper. We were enslaved longer than we have been free and we have a long way to go.”

Jackson in 2017 announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, though his son, Yusef Jackson, later said it was actually a related condition called progressive supranuclear palsy. Seven years later, the ailing Jackson was clearly moved by the response when he was wheeled on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago by Yusef and Jonathan Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“The thunderous applause went on for several minutes,” wrote David Maraniss in the Washington Post. “Cameras panned to members of the audience in tears. Jackson’s face lit up, his eyes sparkling, his puffed cheeks rising from a broad smile. He lifted his hands and gave a thumbs-up sign.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Grey's Anatomy star Eric Dane dies at 53 after ALS diagnosis
Jessica Murphy


Getty

Eric Dane, the actor best known for his roles on Grey's Anatomy and Euphoria, has died less than a year after revealing he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 53.

Dane starred as family patriarch Cal Jacobs on hit HBO teen drama Euphoria. Before that, he was perhaps best known as Dr Mark Sloan, or "Dr McSteamy", on medical drama Grey's Anatomy.

The California-born actor shared his ALS diagnosis in April 2025 and spent his final months raising funds and awareness for the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND).

His family said in a statement: "With heavy hearts, we share that Eric Dane passed on Thursday afternoon following a courageous battle with ALS."

Dane was married to fellow actress and model Rebecca Gayheart, with whom he had two children.

The statement said he spent his final days surrounded by friends and his devoted wife, and his two daughters, Billie and Georgia, "who were the center of his world".

"He will be deeply missed, and lovingly remembered always. Eric adored his fans and is forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support he's received."



Getty

The actor was born in San Francisco in 1972 and made his television debut in the Wonder Years in 1993.

He went on to star as Jason Dean in fantasy drama series Charmed, and Captain Tom Chandler in action drama show The Last Ship, while appearing in films such as Marley & Me, Valentine's Day and Burlesque.


[b]'A joy to work with'[/B

Dane's Grey's Anatomy co-stars led tributes to the late actor. Patrick Dempsey, who played Dr. Derek Shepherd, described him as being "a joy to work with".

"He was the funniest man – he was such a joy to work with and I want to just remember him in that spirit because any time he was on set, he brought so much fun to it. He had a great sense of humour," Dempsey told Virgin Radio.

He added that Dane was "wickedly intelligent", and also did "an incredible job at bringing awareness to this horrible disease".

Kim Raver - who plays doctor Teddy Altman in the series - said: "During filming he'd get this twinkle in his eye and with a mischievous look, he would deliver with perfect comedic timing, a line of dialogue that would floor you."

Kevin McKidd, who plays trauma surgeon Owen Hunt, posted "rest in peace buddy" on Instagram.

Euphoria creator Sam Levinson told Variety: "I'm heartbroken by the loss of our dear friend."

"Working with him was an honor. Being his friend was a gift," he said.

His Charmed co-star Alyssa Milano meanwhile wrote that her "heart is with the people who were lucky enough to be his home".

"When it came to his daughters and Rebecca, everything in him softened. He carried them with him even in rooms where they weren't present... A breathtakingly beautiful family."

Ashton Kutcher, who starred alongside Dane in 2010's Valentine's Day, also paid tribute on social media: "Miss you, buddy. Let's keep fighting the fight to solve ALS."

Nina Dobrev separately said he "led with kindness and made everyone on our set feel seen". The pair starred together in 2022's Redeeming Love.

"He was warm, generous, prepared, and so passionate about what he did," she wrote on Instagram. "ALS is a cruel and unforgiving disease. May his memory inspire more research, awareness, and progress toward a cure."


Getty

Since sharing his diagnosis 10 months ago, Dane advocated for research and awareness surrounding the progressive condition.

In November, he appeared on screen as a firefighter struggling to accept support following an ALS diagnosis in an episode of NBC medical drama Brilliant Minds.

Earlier this month, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in health for his advocacy work.

"I'm trying to save my life," Dane told the publication, "and if my actions can move the needle forward for myself and countless others, I'm satisfied".

In December, he had joined the board of directors of Target ALS, an organisation dedicated to research for effective ALS treatments and a cure - who said he had helped one of its campaigns surpass a fundraising target of $500,000 (£371,000).

He also appeared in a video for a separate fundraising campaign in September in which he said he was "an actor... a father and now a person living with ALS", and spoke about "finally, finally push toward ending this disease".

In June, he told ABC's Good Morning America that the diagnosis had made him "angry" because he had lost his father, who died by suicide, as child: "There's a very good chance I'm going to be taken from my girls while they're very young."


Eddy Chen/HBOGetty

What is ALS?

According to the NHS, MND "encompasses several different conditions whose common feature is the premature degeneration of motor nerves (known as neurons or sometimes neurones)".

It says nearly 90% of patients with MND have the mixed ALS form of the disease.

Also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a rare degenerative disease that causes progressive paralysis of the muscles.

There is no cure for ALS, and, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, people usually live for three to five years after diagnosis although some can live for decades.

20 February 2026: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Kim Raver played Eric Dane's on-screen wife in Grey's Anatomy. Their characters had a short-lived romance but were not married.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Robert Carradine, actor behind ‘Revenge of the Nerds' and ‘Lizzie McGuire,' dies at 71

He was the half-brother of the late David Carradine, the actor known for his roles in "Kill Bill" and the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu," who died in 2009.

By Helen Jeong and Dennis Broad • Published February 23, 2026 • Updated on February 24, 2026 at 4:23 am



Getty

Robert Carradine, an actor and a member of the Carradine family, died at the age of 71, NBC4 Investigates confirmed Monday.

His manager and brother Keith Carradine said in a statement Tuesday to NBC News that the actor had “succumbed to bipolar disorder after fighting it for almost 20 years.”

Carradine was most famous for portraying Lewis Skolnick in the "Revenge of the Nerds" film franchise in the 1980s and 1990s. He later became well known to younger audiences as he played Sam McGuire, the father of Lizzie McGuire from the Disney Channel hit "Lizzie McGuire."

The Los Angeles native would have turned 72 years old in March.

Online, Carradine's former co-star, Hilary Duff, paid tribute to him with an emotional Instagram post.

"My heart aches for him, his family and everyone who loved him," Duff's post read.

Robert Carradine's daughter, Ever Carradine, confirmed the death on her Instagram account and paid tribute to her father. “My sweet, funny dad, who’s only 20 years older than I am, who never missed an opportunity to drive me to the airport or tell me how much he loved my homemade salad dressing, is gone,” she wrote.

Ever is also an actress and has appeared in a number of television shows such as "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Major Crimes."

The late actor hailed from the Carradine family, one of Hollywood's acting dynasties.

His half-brother, the late David Carradine, was known for his martial arts expertise and roles in the 1970s TV show "Kung Fu" as well the "Kill Bill" series.

Carradine had over 150 acting credits to his name and more recently had been active in the film and TV circles, making appearances at multiple film festivals and conventions.

Carradine's most recent work includes "The Night They Came Home," a western thriller featuring Brian Austin Green and Danny Trejo.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Neil Sedaka, a Pop Hitmaker Across Two Eras, Dead at 86

The songwriter and performer broke through with early Sixties hits like "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," then mounted a Seventies comeback with "Laughter In the Rain"

By Jon Blistein
February 27, 2026



Bettemann Archive/Getty


Neil Sedaka, the crooner and songwriter behind memorable hits like “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” “Calendar Girl” and “Laughter in the Rain,” died on Friday at age 86.

Sedaka’s reps confirmed his death to Rolling Stone. A cause of death was not revealed.

“Our family is devastated by the sudden passing of our beloved husband, father and grandfather, Neil Sedaka,” the singer’s family said in a statement. “A true rock and roll legend, an inspiration to millions, but most importantly, at least to those of us who were lucky enough to know him, an incredible human being who will be deeply missed.”

Sedaka was one of the most successful performers and writers of the Sixties and Seventies, enjoying two distinct eras of success. In the early Sixties, his sugary pop and doo wop-inflected tunes like “Breaking Up” and “Oh! Carol” dominated the pre-Beatlemania charts. A decade later, he returned as an adult contemporary star with hits like “Laughter in the Rain” and “Bad Blood.”

Sedaka was born and raised in Brooklyn, and his early proficiency at piano earned him a spot at the famed Juilliard School of Music, where he attended both prep school and college. At the same time he was getting a classical education, though, Sedaka was falling in love with early rock & roll and co-founding the doo-wop group, the Tokens. While Sedaka left before the Tokens topped the charts with their famous (if controversial) version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” he’d soon find success of his own.

Alongside his neighbor and longtime songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield, Sedaka set up shop at the famous Brill Building and helped define the pop style that emerged from the New York City hit factory. Their success with songs like “Stupid Cupid” for Connie Francis helped Sedaka secure a record deal of his own. He notched his first Top 10 hit in 1959 with “Oh! Carol,” then followed it up with notable tunes like “Stairway to Heaven” (not that one), “Calendar Girl,” “Little Devil,” and “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen.” The run culminated in 1962 when “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” went to Number One, and “Next Door to an Angel” peaked at Number Five.

Not only was Sedaka big in the U.S., he was also a huge star abroad. He bolstered his international appeal by frequently recording his songs in other languages. Over the course of his career, he’d release tracks in Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Japanese.

The arrival of the Beatles in 1964, however, effectively stunted Sedaka’s solo career. His label eventually dropped him and he found himself in financial straits after learning that his manager (also his mother’s boyfriend) had blown his savings. Sedaka was able to support himself as a songwriter, and his work enjoyed some success, but in an interview with The New York Times last year, he admitted to feeling lost during the second half of the 1960s.

“I missed it. I missed it with a vengeance,” he said. “I listened to the radio and thought what do I have to do? No more of the tra-la-las and do-be-dos, which I was the king of. I wanted to be an artist that fit into the culture of the time.”

In the early Seventies, Sedaka found refuge and fresh inspiration in England. He gigged at small clubs across the country and met a new set of collaborators, including the members of the burgeoning pop group 10cc. With them, Sedaka recorded two records, 1972’s Solitaire and 1973’s The Tra-La Days Are Over, which further boosted his profile in the U.K. He soon found a staunch advocate in Elton John, who signed Sedaka to his label and helped him mount his comeback.

In 1974, John’s Rocket Record Company compiled many of Sedaka’s songs from his U.K. era into the compilation, Sedaka’s Back, which earned gold certification in the U.S. The following year would be Sedaka’s biggest: He topped the Billboard Hot 100 twice as a solo artist, first with “Laughter In the Rain” and then with “Bad Blood” (the latter featuring uncredited backing vocals from John), while his new ballad version of “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” peaked at Number Eight. At the same time, Captain and Tennille went to Number One with “Love Will Keep Us Together” (written by Sedaka and Greenfield for The Tra-La Days Are Over) and the Carpenters hit Number 17 with a rendition of Sedaka’s song “Solitaire.”

Sedaka cracked the Top 20 two more times as a solo artist, first with the bustling, rock-leaning 1976 tune, “Love in the Shadows,” and then again in 1980 with “Should’ve Never Let You Go,” recorded with his daughter, Dara. Otherwise, Sedaka enjoyed continued success in the adult contemporary space during the late Seventies and early Eighties with hits like “Amarillo,” “Alone at Last,” and “Your Precious Love” (also with Dara). In 1983, Sedaka was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In the coming decades, Sedaka remained busy as both a live performer and recording artist. He dabbled in classical, children’s music, and even recorded a whole album of songs in Yiddish. He released what would be his last studio album, I Do It for Applause, in 2016, and eventually decided to stop writing new music altogether. “I felt if you can’t top it, you should stop it,” he said in a 2020 interview.

Sedaka did enjoy one more revival of sorts, when he started recording and sharing performances from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. The octogenarian proved adept at navigating this new era of short form video. He continued to post after the pandemic, sharing an array of new clips and archival ones on TikTok and Instagram. A video of him playing his first hit, “Stupid Cupid,” this past Valentine’s Day, was viewed more than 338,000 times on TikTok alone.

“I think the reason I’ve been around so long is I’ve always been able to raise the bar, reinvent Neil Sedaka, and to develop and grow,” he said in that same 2020 interview. “It’s still very gratifying to hear my music played on the radio — the songs will outlive me.”

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