Mark Singer, whose New Yorker profiles of a wide variety of people made him one of the country’s most respected journalists, died at 75, The New York Times reports.

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Singer was educated at Yale University and was hired by The New Yorker in 1974. He made his literary debut in 1985 with Funny Money, which chronicled the stunning failure of Penn Square Bank in Oklahoma City. In 1996, he published Citizen K, which told the story of Brett Kimberlin, a convicted felon who claimed to have sold marijuana to former Vice President Dan Quayle.

His now-famous 1993 profile of magician and actor Ricky Jay was collected in the 2000 anthology Life Stories: Profiles From The New Yorker. Among his other prominent profiles was one of Donald Trump, published in 1997 and included in his 2005 collection Character Studies; Trump objected to his unflattering portrayal in a letter to the editor of The New York Times, writing, “I’ve read John Updike, I’ve read Orhan Pamuk, I’ve read Philip Roth. When Mark Singer enters their league, maybe I’ll read one of his books.”

Singer’s other books include Mr. Personality: Profiles and Talk Pieces; Somewhere in America: Under the Radar With Chicken Warriors, Left-Wing Patriots, Angry Nudists, and Others; and, with Alan C. Greenberg, The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns.

Singer’s admirers paid tribute to him following news of his death. New Yorker editor David Remnick told the Times, “He came out of the tradition of A.J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell and Calvin Trillin, which is to say he combined meticulous reporting and a very distinctive comic voice, which is extremely rare.”

On the social platform X, New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer wrote, “RIP Mark Singer, a fabulous writer and wonderful friend.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.