Why This Reference Book Actually Matters
Most people never hear about Obituaries In The Performing Arts 2013 Harris M Lentz Iii until they need it desperately. That is the thing about reference works like this one. They sit on shelves or in PDFs and nobody thinks about them until a deadline is looming and you cannot find who starred in that obscure London production from 1967. Harris Lentz spent decades compiling these volumes. The 2013 edition covers notable figures in film, television, theater, music, and dance who died that year. It is organized by category. Each entry has dates, key roles, and sources cited at the end. The formatting is consistent, which is either brilliant or annoying depending on whether you are cross-referencing three different performers with similar credits.
Obituaries In The Performing Arts 2013 Harris M Lentz Iii
The book itself runs roughly 600 pages. It is available through university libraries, Gale Cengage, and sometimes through direct purchase from the publisher's website. The ISBN for the hardcover edition is 978-0-7864-7777-5. If you are looking to download it, most legal routes go through academic databases rather than open links. Gale offers it in their eBooks platform, and some universities provide full-text access through their library portals. I do not have a direct download link to give you because those usually require institutional login credentials anyway. What most people miss when they pull this book up is how dense the source citations are. Every obituary entry lists where Lentz found his information. Newspaper archives, trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, official estate statements, and other reference works. That citation trail is what makes this book useful beyond just a list of names.
How To Actually Use This Book Without Losing Your Mind
I have used this volume more times than I care to admit, usually at 11 PM the night before something is due. The index is alphabetical but not always helpful because performers often appear under stage names or pseudonyms. I learned this the hard way when I was looking up a Broadway choreographer who was credited under a completely different name in early career work. The index listed her as her married name. The entries only referenced her professional billing. I spent about twenty minutes Googling the discrepancy before I realized what was happening. The workaround I ended up using every time after that is to search the body text directly rather than relying on the index alone. Lentz usually includes a performer's various credited names within the entry itself. If you know even a partial name or a specific production they worked on, a full-text search will get you there faster than flipping through pages. Another thing nobody tells you about using this book: the categories are not mutually exclusive. A person who worked in both film and television might appear under both headings with overlapping content. That is not a flaw, exactly, but it does mean you should check both sections if you are researching someone with a dual career. I once wasted an afternoon thinking a director only worked in theater because I stopped after the first match.
Get the Full Details
The entries also vary in length. Some are two paragraphs. Others run a full page when the subject had a particularly well-documented career. There is no strict word limit or standardized length across entries, which means the depth of information you get depends heavily on how much public record existed for that particular person. Famous people get more coverage. Lesser-known but notable performers might only get a brief mention with a handful of credits listed.
Common Mistakes People Make With This Reference
One mistake I see constantly is assuming the book is comprehensive. It is not. Lentz works from available sources, and if someone died without significant press coverage or if their records are sparse, they simply will not be in the volume. You will find gaps. I once tried to track down a regional theater actor who died in 2013 and was basically unknown outside their local market. They were not in the book. That does not mean they were not notable. It means the source material Lentz had access to did not cover them. Another issue is the publication date. The 2013 edition covers deaths that occurred in 2013, but the book itself was published later. There can be delays between when someone dies and when their obituary appears in the volume. I have seen entries where the sourcing dates extend into early 2014, which means some figures from late 2013 may have been included while others from earlier in the year were omitted due to incomplete records at the time of compilation. If you need coverage for years before or after 2013, you will need to look at other annual editions or supplement with other resources. Lentz has published volumes for many years, and they are generally consistent in format. Using multiple editions together gives you a much stronger research base than relying on any single year.
What To Do When This Book Fails You
When Lentz does not have what you need, the next places I go are the New York Times obituaries archive, the Variety death notices, and the Internet Broadway Database for theater-specific credits. For film and television, the AFI Catalog and the IMDb VIP section can fill gaps, though those sources have their own reliability issues. The AFI material tends to be more accurate for older films. I also keep a running spreadsheet of performers I research across these volumes. It sounds tedious but it saves enormous time when you are working on multiple projects. The data gets duplicated anyway, so why not make it work for you.
