Creator of the Sweet Valley High young adult fiction phenomenon put books in the hands of a generation of girls
Having launched her literary career in scandal and outrage, she was revered by readers — and, in time, her homeland — as a charismatic change-maker
From trains to fountain pens, style never trumped functional substance in the products for which he became famous
Known to millions from radio, TV and books as ‘Dr Ruth’ she revolutionised the way Americans thought and talked about sex
The Swiss father of extreme skiing pioneered descents from the Alps to the Himalayas — and became the sport’s first star
The footballer turned criminal was jailed for stealing Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ and was then himself inspired by it to paint
A novelist who survived one of eastern Europe’s most vicious tyrannies and drew comparisons with Kafka and Orwell
A late starter at the Bar, her rulings on high-value matrimonial disputes burnished London’s attraction for celebrity couples
The dealmaker flitted between Whitehall corridors and Middle Eastern palaces in a quest to rejuvenate his hometown
Athletic and versatile player known as the ‘Say Hey Kid’ lit up what many consider the sport’s golden age
The ‘ye-ye’ scene star came to symbolise the aesthetic of existentialist Left Bank Paris
Mother whose five-decade search for her abducted son helped power a hugely successful human rights movement
The co-founder of the CVS pharmacy chain oversaw its expansion from a pair of stores into a business behemoth
Arbitrageur came to fame as a mergers expert but his scandal helped define Wall Street excess
Conservative cleric and protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a contender to become the Islamic republic’s next supreme leader
Former rugby champion, Heinz CEO and media owner made and lost one of his country’s biggest fortunes
FT wordsmith with an eye for polished prose
Canadian Chekhov who compressed the epic complexity of the novel into just a few pages
An apostle of noise fascinated by the dark side of human behaviour
Prolific author who combined formal experimentation with popular appeal and was a fixture of the New York literary scene
Former UK labour minister eschewed tribalism and held out the promise of a more collaborative style of politics
Artist whose fight to establish her identity conflicted with devotion to a driven family
His pioneering theoretical work helped us understand what made the universe possible
One of the first ‘postmodernist’ writers, he delighted in rearranging traditional literary conventions
An accidental invader of economics, his insights changed the discipline forever
