George Foreman won the heavyweight title at 24, lost it to Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle, retired, became a preacher and won it back at 45. When he died on March 21, 2025, he was better known to many Americans for a grill. These are ten of the best-known people who died in March 2025.
1. Angie Stone (March 1, aged 63)
Angie Stone was a member of the hip-hop trio The Sequence before a solo career that produced “Wish I Didn’t Miss You” and “Brotha”. She was killed in a car crash in Alabama while travelling home from a performance.
2. Carl Dean (March 3, aged 82)
Carl Dean met Dolly Parton outside a Nashville laundromat on her first day in the city in 1964, married her two years later and spent 58 years almost entirely out of public view. Parton said “Jolene” was inspired by a bank teller who flirted with him. She called him the love of her life.
3. Roy Ayers (early March, aged 84)
The jazz-funk vibraphonist recorded “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” in 1976, one of the most sampled records in hip-hop. He died in New York after a long illness.
4. Denise Alexander (aged 85)
Denise Alexander played Dr Lesley Webber on General Hospital for more than a decade and earlier appeared on Days of Our Lives, and was a familiar face of American daytime television for half a century.
5. Stedman Pearson (March 10, aged 60)
Stedman Pearson was one of the five siblings in Five Star, the British family group who had a string of hits in the mid-1980s, including “System Addict” and “Rain or Shine”.
6. Larry Tamblyn (March 21, aged 82)
Larry Tamblyn founded the Standells, whose 1966 hit “Dirty Water” is still played at Fenway Park after every Red Sox win. He was the brother of the actor Russ Tamblyn.
7. George Foreman (March 21, aged 76)
George Foreman won Olympic gold in 1968, knocked out Joe Frazier for the world title in 1973 and lost it to Ali in Kinshasa in 1974. He retired, became a Baptist minister and came back, and in 1994 he knocked out Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history at 45. The George Foreman Grill made him richer than boxing ever did. He named all five of his sons George.
8. Richard Chamberlain (March 29, aged 90)
Richard Chamberlain became a television idol as Dr Kildare in the early 1960s and the king of the miniseries in the 1980s, as Father Ralph in The Thorn Birds and the hero of Shōgun. He publicly came out as gay in a 2003 memoir. He died in Hawaii after complications from a stroke, days before his 91st birthday.
9. Richard Norton (March 30, aged 75)
The Australian martial artist and actor worked as a bodyguard for touring rock bands before a film career that ran from fights with Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan to a role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
10. Sian Barbara Allen (March 31, aged 78)
Sian Barbara Allen played Jenny Pendleton in The Waltons and was nominated for an Emmy in the 1970s. She had Alzheimer’s disease.
Foreman’s five sons named George were his joke on his own legacy: he said he wanted them to have something in common. They will also share the story of a man who won the world title twice, twenty years apart.