Bimla Bissell, the indispensable and well-connected social secretary to four American ambassadors to India who was a kind of unofficial ambassador herself, a shrewd local guide to the culture and complexities of a sprawling country, died on Jan. 9 at her home in Delhi. She was 92. The cause was complications of diabetes, her daughter, … Read more
Joel Paley, a dancer, playwright and director who wrote the book and lyrics for “Ruthless!,” an award-winning Off Broadway musical about an ambitious girl who will do anything — including murder her rival — to star in a grade school show, died on Jan. 11 in Milford, Conn. He was 69 and lived in Redding, … Read more
Tall and elegant, she was an engaging, charismatic speaker. “She spoke to you, rather than at you,” the journalist and novelist Anna Quindlen said in an interview on Monday, “a kind of authenticity with a touch of Texas.” During her 12-year-term, Ms. Richards orchestrated Planned Parenthood’s evolution into a potent political organization and the country’s … Read more