MOONEY--Aidan George.

Died at home after a short illness on December 4, 2016, surrounded by his loved ones. Slender and dark-haired, clad generally in a leather jacket and military-style beret, Aidan was a magnetic and striking figure. Born in the Bronx on June 6, 1942, he was educated at Iona College and worked for many years in the research department of Newsweek; but his true passion was for the arts. He had an innate and unerring eye and ear, and an ardent enthusiasm for film, theater, painting, opera, and ballet that expressed itself in strong and fiercely-held opinions. He was unafraid to call out critics with whom he disagreed, to tell choreographers, conductors, or directors exactly what he thought of their work (for good or ill), or to cheer (or sometimes boo) dancers, singers, or musicians for their performances; and for the most part they reveled in this intense attention. As the critic Alastair Macaulay said, "It is hard to imagine going to the New York State Theater without Aidan's passionate presence in the audience." Aidan was a creator as well as a viewer: the apartment in the East Village that he shared with his partner, William Earle, and their houses in Bridgehampton and Spoleto, were extraordinary environments whose painted or tiled surfaces, artful groupings of furniture and sculpture, and meticulously-assembled dioramas were the reflection of a unique aesthetic sensibility. A longtime friend of the choreographer and director Jerome Robbins, for whose foundation he served as an advisor and trustee, and of the legendary ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq, among others, Aidan was also mentor to a rising generation of new artists in many fields, including the choreographer Benjamin Millepied. All of them, and his host of friends, and those he loved and who loved him, will miss him terribly, for he was one of a kind: generous, tough-minded, tenderhearted, funny, shrewd, indelible, and irreplaceable.