TERRENCE MCNALLY

If it was show time at any of the city’s myriad off-Broadway theaters, audience members could likely expect to see a theatrical giant in their midst — playwright Terrence McNally.

Angela Lansbury, the scene-stealing British actor who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died.

Groundbreaking artists and thinkers are among those whose deaths are blamed on the illness caused by the coronavirus.

The world also said goodbye to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who died in July. Other former political figures who died this year include Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Arizona Gov. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2020 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___David Stern, 77. The guitarist who supplied the scratching, seething sound that fueled the highly influential British punk band Gang of Four. He fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music.

FILE - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, actor Nick Cordero attends the after-party for the opening night of "Bullets Over Broadway" in New York. Tony Award-nominated actor Cordero, who specialized in playing tough guys on Broadway in such shows as Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Bullets Over Broadway, has died in Los Angeles after suffering severe medical complications after contracting the coronavirus. Cordero died Sunday, July 5, 2020, at Cedars-Sinai hospital after more than 90 days in the hospital, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, actor Nick Cordero attends the after-party for the opening night of "Bullets Over Broadway" in New York. Tony Award-nominated actor Cordero, who specialized in playing tough guys on Broadway in such shows as Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Bullets Over Broadway, has died in Los Angeles after suffering severe medical complications after contracting the coronavirus. Cordero died Sunday, July 5, 2020, at Cedars-Sinai hospital after more than 90 days in the hospital, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File)NEW YORK – Tony Award-nominated actor Nick Cordero, who specialized in playing tough guys on Broadway in such shows as “Waitress,” “A Bronx Tale” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” has died in Los Angeles after suffering severe medical complications after contracting the coronavirus. Cordero died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai hospital after more than 90 days in the hospital, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots.

NEW YORK – Tony Award-nominated actor Nick Cordero has had his his right leg amputated after suffering complications from the coronavirus, his wife says. “We took him off blood thinners but that again was going to cause some clotting in the right leg, so the right leg will be amputated today,” she said earlier Saturday. Cordero entered the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on March 31 and has been on a ventilator and unconscious after contracting COVID-19. Cordero played a mob soldier with a flair for the dramatic in 2014 in Broadway’s Woody Allen 1994 film adaptation of “Bullets Over Broadway," for which he received a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical. It has also claimed the life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally.