In 1984, he supported a bill in California that would enable death row prisoners to donate their organs and die by anesthesia instead of poison gas or the electric chair.
He is survived by his sister, Flora Kevorkian Holzheimer. His sister, Margo Kevorkian Janus, died in 1994.
He was the middle child and only son of three children of Levon and Satenig Kevorkian, Armenian refugees.
He moved to Long Beach, California in 1976 where he spent his time painting and writing and producing an unsuccessful film, about "Handel's Messiah." He was there for 12 years.