Docherty, Johnson, Pappan, Lewis, Cost, Jamal, Groat

Debra Docherty, 63 
Docherty was a former model who started Docherty Casting in 1987. It soon became a premier talent agency in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Among the actors she helped to discover were Zachary Quinto and Joe Manganiello. Docherty was known for her commitment to her clients, sometimes paying for expenses out of her own pocket and always encouraging them to reach for the stars. She was pivotal in helping to develop the film and television industry here, working closely but not competitively with the other casting agencies to both nurture and provide the talent necessary to attract productions to the region.

Judge Livingstone Johnson, 95 
His friends called him “Judge Livy,” and he was widely respected as a county Common Pleas Court judge for 34 years. The son of Oliver Livingstone Johnson, the county’s first black assistant DA, and the elder brother of the late Justin Johnson, the second African American to serve on the state Superior Court, Johnson graduated from Howard University in 1949. He flew 58 combat missions in the Korean War and went on to earn a law degree from the University of Michigan. He began his civil rights activism by representing the Urban League in the hiring of blacks by the Pittsburgh Pirates and was also chair of the United Negro Protest Committee. Johnson was a champion for women’s rights and was a founding member of the Women in Law division of the Allegheny County Bar Association. 

Lou Pappan, 92 
He was famous for his TV commercials, with catchphrases like “An you gonna like it” and “Chicken Chicken Chicken!” Pappan founded Pappan’s Family Restaurants in New Brighton in 1964 and grew the chain to more than 30 outlets by the mid-1990s. He was also a franchise owner of Roy Rogers fast-food restaurants, some of which he bought from Mayor Bob O’Connor’s family. He kept O’Connor on as a manager, sent him to Dale Carnegie courses and elevated him to VP overseeing 18 locations. Pappan was a philanthropist who honored 6,000 senior citizens every summer for 20 years by throwing a 12-hour picnic. He also built two churches, a soccer field and fountains in his native Greece and supported the Salvation Army, Special Olympics, YMCA and the American Legion.

Mary Elizabeth Lewis, 97 
She learned to dance from Gene Kelly and developed a lifelong passion for the arts. She earned a degree in dramatic arts from Carnegie Mellon (Jack Klugman was a classmate) and a master’s in education from Pitt, and became a teacher, author and acting instructor at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. She taught there from the ’50s through the ’70s and married Playhouse director Mark Lewis. She went on to teach at Carlow and CCAC and wrote “Acting for Children,” a collection of plays and a guide for teaching drama. Lewis traveled the world, making religious pilgrimages to Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Croatia.

Charles “Corky” Cost, 87 
He was a star running back in the mid-’50s at Pitt, where he earned nine letters in three years in baseball, basketball and football and played in both the Gator and Sugar Bowls. After serving in the Army, Cost formed the Cost Company, which he led for 60 years as it tackled numerous high-profile masonry projects, including the seven-month restoration of the Cathedral of Learning. He was at his desk by 4 a.m., working 12-hour days to build a company whose projects touched every sector of regional development. So did his philanthropy — he supported the arts, education, health care and athletics, endowing the Cost Sports Center at Pitt. He was honored by Magee-Womens Hospital and Carnegie Mellon, among others, and the Charles L. Cost Field at Pitt is named for him.

Ahmad Jamal, 92 
He grew up in Pittsburgh and began playing piano at 3, and professionally by 14. Over the next seven decades, Jamal continued to improvise and his spare, supple approach to jazz piano influenced generations of other musicians, including Miles Davis. He was called minimalist, classicist and modernist as he strove to erase distinctions among musical genres. His group was the house band for Chicago’s black-owned Pershing Hotel lounge, where Billie Holiday and Sammy Davis Jr. hung out, when he recorded his 1958 million-selling album, “Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing: But Not For Me.” It stayed on the Billboard magazine charts for more than 100 weeks and its rendition of the 1930s pop ballad “Poinciana” became his signature.

Dick Groat, 92
Groat was a two-sport athletic start at Duke University — basketball and baseball — who went on to become a longtime Pirate star. A native of Swissvale, he was part of the 1960 World Champion Pirates and won the National League MVP Award that year, with a .325 average. At Duke, he was the first player to lead the nation in scoring with 26 points a game and assists and was named college basketball’s National Player of the Year. He’s one of only 13 men to play in both Major League Baseball and the NBA. More recent Pittsburghers will remember him as the courtside analyst for Pitt basketball games from 1979 for the next 40 years. “As great of a sports legend as Dick was, he was a better human being,” said his Pitt broadcaster partner Bill Hillgrove.