In Passing

Los Angeles

Alex Toth comic book artist

Alex Toth, a maverick figure in the comic book world whose mood-driven, highly stylized work influenced a generation of artists even though his strong-willed ways left him underused within the industry, died May 27 at his drawing table. He was 77.

Toth died at his home in Burbank, according to his son Eric, who said that the cause of death had not been determined. Toth had been in failing health in recent years but had continued to work and, through well-wishers, gained a sense of validation in his twilight time.

Toth’s most enduring contribution to pop culture came through television, as his character designs for Hanna-Barbera Productions including “Super Friends,” “Space Ghost,” “Herculoids” and other heroic series of the 1960s and 1970s created signature images. His thousands of drawings for those series were used to pitch the shows or set the visual standards for animators and now are prized by collectors.

“The work he did there touched more lives than anything else he had done,” said Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics.

New York

Arnold Newman photographer

Photographer Arnold Newman, whose “environmental portraits” of artists and politicians revealed their souls through evocative settings and lighting, died Tuesday. He was 88.

Newman, who was in rehabilitation from a recent stroke, died of a heart attack at Mount Sinai Medical Center, according to associates at a gallery that represented him.

Based mostly in New York, Newman traveled the world to photograph artists, scientists, fellow photographers and politicians. Working as a freelancer for Life and other magazines, he photographed Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan and Mickey Mantle.

His portraits were posed to bring out what the subjects did, revealing them in their own environments. Among his best-known works were those of Igor Stravinsky at the piano and Nazi industrialist Alfred Krupp looking demonic in his factory.

The International Center of Photography gave Newman its Infinity Award as a master of photography in 1999.

Los Angeles

Lula Mae Hardaway singer’s mother

Lula Mae Hardaway, mother of singer Stevie Wonder, has died. She was 76.

Hardaway died May 31 in Los Angeles, Wonder’s publicist Shelley Selover said Thursday. She did not know the cause of death.

Hardaway is credited as a co-writer on several of Wonder’s songs, including the hits “I Was Made to Love Her” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.”

Hardaway was born Jan. 11, 1930, to a sharecropper in Eufaula, Ala. Her life was marked by poverty and abuse, according to interviews she gave for a 2002 biography, “Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder’s Mother.”

At 15, she and her father moved to Indiana, where she went to work in a sewing factory. She married a much older man, Calvin Judkins, father of her children, who drank, beat her and eventually forced her into prostitution to support the family, according to the book.

She eventually fled to Detroit, divorced and found work. It was in Detroit that her blind 10-year-old son, Stevie, began singing on street corners. His talent caught the eye of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr., who signed him to a record contract and nicknamed him “Little Stevie Wonder.”

The family moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where Hardaway was known for her barbecue sauce and peach cobbler. She was a religious woman who kept Bibles on the bed, dresser and couch, according to an obituary from her family.