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News and Entertainment
Placide Adams - String bass player who was one of the stalwarts of traditional New Orleans jazz, who was leader of Onward Brass Band, and who got his start in 50’s R&B playing on recordings for such stars as Clyde McPhatter, Ruth Brown and B.B. King, died March 28 in New Orleans at age 73.
Bob Anderson - Morning DJ at Portland, Maine radio station WYNZ, who was known as “The Duke of Portland” and had worked in radio in Portland since 1963, died of a heart attack while hosting his morning show on March 29 at the age of 59.
David Azarian - Armenian-born jazz pianist who came to the U.S. in 1989 and performed at such legendary jazz venues as the Blue Note and Carnegie Hall in New York, and who released several LP’s including the highly lauded “Stairway to Seventh Heaven” and 1999’s “Hope”, was killed March 29 in Boston when he was hit by a car while changing a tire at the age of 51.
David Battley - British comedic actor who appeared frequently with the Monte Python troupe and with Rowan Atkinson in the Mr. Bean series, but is probably best-known for his role as Charlie’s teacher Mr. Turkentine in “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, died Jan. 20 of a heart attack at age 67.
William Blezard - Pianist and composer of orchestral and chamber music, who created and arranged music for many films including the film “The Astonished Heart”, who served as musical director and accompanist to such luminaries as Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward, died March 2 in England at age 81.
Anthony Caruso - Stage, film and TV actor who often played gangsters, desperados and other bad guys appearing in films including “Cattle Queen of Montana”, “Zebra Force”, “Pride of the Marines” and in several Bob Hope and Abbott & Costello comedies, and in TV series like “Gunsmoke”, “Star Trek” and “Have Gun Will Travel”, died April 4 in Los Angeles after a long illness at age 86.
Leslie Cheung - One of Asia’s most popular performers as both an actor and pop singer, who won international acclaim for his portrayal of an opera star in the 1993 movie "Farewell, My Concubine", committed suicide on April 1 by jumping from the 24th floor of a Hong Kong hotel at age 46.
Harry Ellis Dickson - Violinist and conductor who was fixture at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 49 years, and who is the father of Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, died March 22 in Boston at age 94.
Rusty Draper - Singer known for pop covers of country hits, who had several big hits on the pop charts in the 1950’s like “Freight Train”, “Gambler’s Guitar”, “Are You Satisfied?” and his biggest, the bizarre “The Shifting, Whispering, Sands” from 1955, died March 28 of pneumonia in Bellevue, WA at age 80.
Anne Gwynne - TV and movie actress best known as one of Universal Studios best B-movie screamers in films like “House of Frankenstein”, “Murder In the Blue Room” and “The Ghost Goes Wild”, and who appeared nearly 60 movies from the 1930’s until the 1970’s, died March 31 after a stroke in Woodland Hills, CA at age 80.
Nick Enright - Australian playwright who was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay to the 1993 film “Lorenzo’s Oil”, and who was a close friend of actor Mel Gibson, died March 30 of skin cancer in Sydney at age 52.
Dwight D. Frye - Son of Golden Age horror film actor Dwight Fry (Renfield in "Dracula") who co-wrote "Dwight Frye's Last Laugh" about his father, and who was a regular at horror movie conventions with other children of the stars from horror’s golden age, died March 27 in New York at age 72.
Michael Jeter - Actor in TV and film best-known for his Emmy-winning role as Herman Stiles, the shrimpy assistant football coach on the TV show “Evening Shade”, who also played Mr. Noodle on “Sesame Street”, and who appeared in feature films like “The Green Mile”, “Jurassic Park III”, “Patch Adams” and the upcoming “The Polar Express”, was found dead on March 30 apparently of natural causes (he was HIV positive) in Hollywood Hills at age 50.
Kaveh Golestan - Pulitizer Prize-winning Iranian photojournalist who was working as a freelance cameraman for the BBC in Northern Iraq, was killed on April 3 in Kifri, Iraq when he stepped on a landmine. He was 51 years old.
Pat Leavy - Popular Irish actress on the TV show “Fair City”, who is best known to international audiences for her roles in movies like “The Commitments”, “Moll Flanders” and “This Is My Father”, died suddenly April 2 on the set of “Fair City” of unknown causes. Her age was not stated other than “in her 60’s”.
Chris Michie - Highly-regarded session guitarist who was a member of the 70’s group Lamb, and who played and recorded with the Pointer Sisters, Boz Skaggs and Maria Muldaur and who had a long association with rocker Van Morrison, died March 27 of melanoma in Fairfax, CA at age 55.
Gaby Rado - British TV war correspondent for ITN, who was reporting from the town of Sulaimani in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, jumped or fell from the roof of his hotel on March 30. He was 48 years old.
Edwin Starr (real name Charles Hatcher) - R&B singer and producer best known for his Vietnam war protest song “War” which spent 3 weeks at #1 in 1970, but who also had more than a dozen other hit songs including “Agent Double-O-Soul”, “Twenty-Five Miles” and “Stop The War Now”, died April 2 of a heart attack at his home in Nottingham, England at age 61.
Ted Streshinsky - Photojournalist known for his photo essays about the turmoil of the 1960s for Life, Look, Time, the Saturday Evening Post and Smithsonian magazines, and whose photos of grape fields were used as a background for the U.S. postal stamp of Cesar Chavez, died March 27 after lung surgery in Richmond, CA at age 80.
Michael Wayne - Eldest son of actor John Wayne and producer of many of his fathers films including “McLintock”, “The Green Berets”, “Big Jake”, “Cahill U.S. Marshall” and “Brannigan”, died April 2 of lupus complications in Burbank, CA at age 68.
Brandi Wells - Lead singer of the Philadelphia R&B vocal group Slick, who had a hit in 1980 with “Sunrise”, and who later had an even bigger solo hit with 1982’s “Watch Out”, died March 25 in Philadelphia at age 47.
Philip Yordan - Hollywood writer and producer won an Academy Award in 1954 for his original story for "Broken Lance", who acted as a front for several blacklisted colleagues during the McCarthy era, and who wrote such memorable scripts as “Man From Laramie”, “Dillinger” and “Johnny Guitar”, died March 24 in LaJolla, CA at age 88.
Sports
Chuck Anderson - Head baseball coach for Florida Southern College from 1984 until 2002, who ranks second in Division II history with a .770 winning percent, who won three Division II championships in 1985, 1988 and 1995, died April 2 of cancer in Lakeland, FL at age 63.
George “Moose” Connor - Hall of Fame NFL offensive and defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears, who was the first of the Bears big, mobile linebackers, and who had been a two-time All American at Notre Dame, died March 31 in Chicago after a long illness at age 78.
J. Donald MacWilliams - Longtime television sports reporter and anchor in Maine at WCSH in Portland, who also wrote two books about sports in Maine, died March 31 in Portland at age 86.
Bill Merrill - Radio play-by-play and color commentator for the Texas Rangers baseball team from 1974 until 1981, died March 29 in Arlington, TX at age 79.
Art and Literature
Jeanne Braselton - Novelist whose debut novel “A False Sense of Well Being” won her the 2002 Georgia author of the year award, whose late husband Albert Braselton accompanied James Dickey on the river trip that was the basis for Dickey's novel, “Deliverance”, was found dead March 29 at her home in Rome, GA of an apparent suicide at age 41.
Carolyn Doty - Novelist who published acclaimed psychological dramas including "A Day Later", "Fly Away Home" and "Whisper", who was the fiction director of the annual weeklong Squaw Valley Writers Conference, died March 10 of a heart attack in Lawrence, KS at age 62.
Barbara Duncan - Promoter, collector, author and exhibitor of Latin American art, who is credited with bringing Latin American artwork to prominence in the United States, died March 28 in New York at age 82 .
Harry Fisher - Author, anti-war activist and one-time communist whose memoir about his experiences as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War “Comrades” has sold well in the U.S., Spain and Germany and who worked for many years as a technician at the Soviet news agency Tass, died March 22 after collapsing at an antiwar demonstration in New York City at age 92.
Michael Kelly - Syndicated columnist for The Washington Post and editor of The Atlantic Monthly from 1999 until 2002, whose 1991 book "Martyr's Day" based on his experiences as a reporter in the Gulf War won the PEN-Martha Albrand Award, was killed April 3 south of Baghdad when the vehicle he was riding in ran off the road and crashed while under fire from the Iraqi military. He was 46 years old.
Bernard Rabin - Noted American art restorer who refurbished artwork inside the Capitol dome in Washington, restored the ceiling of the Library of Congress, helped save many artworks damaged by the 1966 floods in Florence, Italy, and who worked on numerous masterpieces in both public and private collections, died March 24 from complications of kidney dialysis in Boynton Beach, FL at age 86.
Ron Rains - Western sculptor best known for his works in bronze that are on display in venues such as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Cowboy Hall of Fame, died April 2 of heart disease in Billings, MT at age 60.
George Solonevich - Russian-born artist who escaped from a Russian labor camp and eventually settled in the U.S. where he became known for his paintings of exotic animals and beautiful people, died March 28 after a series of strokes at age 87.
Art Thompson - Artist who mastered the style of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Vancouver Island, and created everything from paintings to rattles to decorative boxes, died March 30 in Victoria, B.C. of cancer at age 54.
Eduardo Urculo - Spanish painter and sculptor best-known for a pair of bronze figures, “El Viajero”, a sculpture of bags and cases, a coat, a hat and an umbrella located at Madrid’s Atocha railway station, and “Culis monumentalibus”, a gigantic sculpture of a female buttocks in the square in the city of Oviedo, died March 31 of a heart attack in Madrid at age 64.
Politics and Military
Lucian Adams - Army soldier who received the Medal of Honor during World War II for a solitary forest raid on Oct. 28, 1944 in northeast France where he single-handedly destroyed three German machine-gun nests and killed nine enemy soldiers, and who was also awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart as one of the most highly-decorated Hispanic American soldiers, died March 31 of diabetes and a heart ailment in San Antonio, TX at age 80.
Paul H. Boeker - U.S. diplomat who served as ambassador to both Bolivia and Jordan in his 27 years in the Foreign Service, died March 29 of a brain tumor in San Diego at age 64.
Euterpe Dukakis - Mother of former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, died April 3 in Boston at age 99.
Roger Eddy - Connecticut state congressman and senator who served from 1959 to 1971, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1983, and who invented the popular Audubon Bird Call (I swear that’s what the obit said!), died March 28 in Newington, CT on his 83rd birthday.
Charles Gowen - Georgia legislator who served as a representative for 20 years from the 1930’s to 1950’s and ran for governor in 1954, died March 31 in Atlanta at age 99.
Quigg Newton - Mayor of Denver, Colorado from 1947 to 1955, who was called the “boy mayor” when first elected in 1947, who after two terms as mayor became president of the University of Colorado, died April 4 in Denver from injuries suffered in a fall at age 91.
Valentin Pavlov - Soviet prime minister who in 1991 with other Soviet hard-liners lead a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in an attempt to save the crumbling Union, but was eventually undermined by thousands of protesters (the Soviet Union dissolved four months later), died March 30 in Moscow after a long illness at age 66.
Teno Roncalio - U.S. Congressman from Wyoming called the "last unreconstructed liberal" to represent Wyoming in Congress, who served five terms as a Democrat from 1964 to 1978 and who defeated William Henry Harrison, great-grandson of the like named president when first elected in 1964, died March 30 in Cheyenne, WY at age 87.
Matthew J. Ryan - Pennsylvania state congressman who was first elected in 1962 and was the second-longest serving member of the Pennsylvania House, who was elected Speaker of the House in 1981, and who in 1999 had a state government building named in his honor, died March 29 of stomach cancer in Philadelphia at age 70.
Harold Sawyer - U.S. Congressman from Michigan who served as a Republican from 1977 until 1985, who is best known for drafting the Child Protection Act of 1984, died April 3 of cancer in Kent County, MI at age 83.
Nancy Solomonson - Oldest daughter of former U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who spent her life working with people with Down syndrome and other mental illnesses, died March 25 in Florida at age 64.
Social and Religion
Robert Leroy Anderson - South Dakota murderer and one of five men on death row in that state, who was convicted in the 1994 kidnap and murder of 29-year-old Larisa Dumansky, and the 1996 kidnap and murder of 28-year-old Piper Streyle, committed suicide by hanging himself on March 30 in Pierre, SD at age 33.
Bishop Vincent DePaul Breen - Catholic bishop who lead the 500,000 member Diocese of Metuchen over four counties in New Jersey, died on March 30 of Alzheimer’s disease in Mutuchen, NJ at age 66.
Walter Decoster Dennis - Suffragan bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of New York who became only the second African-American to be elected to the title of suffragan bishop in the 200-year history of the diocese, who served on the boards of Planned Parenthood, the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity and the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, died March 30 in Hampton, VA of an embolism at age 70.
Emily The Cow - Massachusetts cow who was in the news in 1995 when she escaped from a slaughterhouse into the woods and was given a reprieve on life, who was adopted by Peace Abbey and used a symbol for vegetarianism, and whose story is being made into a Hollywood movie, died March 31 of uterine cancer at age 10.
Scott Allen Hain - Oklahoma man who at age 17 in 1987 kidnapped Lara Lee Sanders and Michael Houghton from the parking lot of a bar in Tulsa, locked them in the trunk of their car, drove to a remote location and set the car on fire, was executed by lethal injection on April 3 in McAlester, OK at age 32.
Milton Henschel - Jehovah's Witness minister who served as president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, the corporation that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use to conduct business and publish periodicals, tracts and bibles, died March 22 in Brooklyn, NY at age 82.
Perri Rlickman - One of the odd family of New Orleans street performers for the last 20 years, who made his living in Jackson Square by blowing up balloons in different shapes and performing magic tricks, who was known for his incessantly loud whistling and brash behavior, was found dead on March 22 in his home of unknown causes at age 52.
Business and Science
Carole Eichen - Interior designer dubbed the “goddess of model homes”, who pioneered the concept of designing model homes specifically for targeted buyers, and who won numerous interior design and marketing awards, died March 31 of cancer in Newport Beach, CA at age 70.
Victor Gauntlett - Entrepreneur who in 1981, became executive chairman of Aston Martin, the pricey luxury sports car maker, who during his tenure was able to increase production from an average of 3 cars a day to 4 ½ per day (I swear I didn’t make that up!) before selling the company to Ford in 1987, died suddenly on April 1 at age 60 (no other info was available).
Dr. Arthur Guyton - Cardiovascular physiologist known not only for the invention of the electric wheelchair for which he received a presidential citation and his work with NASA, but also as the author of “The Textbook of Medical Physiology” first published in 1956 and one of the primary textbooks used to teach medical students around the world for 45 years, was killed in a car accident on April 3 in Jackson, MS at age 83.
Pekka Herlin - Chairman of the KONE Corp., one of the world’s largest elevator manufacturers, whose company employs more than 29,000 workers and delivers about 20,000 elevators worldwide annually, died April 4 in Helsinki, Finland after a long illness age 70.
Robert Hudec - Attorney and pioneer in the study of international trade law who taught balance between diplomacy and politics and who wrote several texts including “Enforcing International Trade Law” and “Free Trade and the Regulatory State”, died March 12 of coronary disease while vacationing in North Captiva Island, FL at age 68.
Dr. Vernon Hughes - Physicist at Yale University known for his study of muons (subatomic particles that are related to electrons – but you already knew that), whose research supports a theory called supersymmetry which supposes that there are yet undiscovered subatomic particles, died March 25 in New Haven, CT at age 81 (I hope somebody was taking notes).
Dr. Enrico Jones - Psychologist and pioneer in the empirical study of psychotherapy (study of how psychotherapy works), who focused on such things as the gender of the therapist, who showed for example that a woman generally fared better with a woman therapist, died March 29 in San Francisco of bone marrow cancer at age 55.
Kerim Kerimov - Soviet expert in rocket technology during WW2 who became a central figure and founding father of the Soviet space program, who oversaw the construction of the Mir space station and whose name was kept secret until the glasnost movement of the 1980’s, died March 29 in Moscow at age 85.
Hugh Liedtke - Founder, with his brother William Liedtke and former president George H.W. Bush, of Zapata Petroleum Corporation, the company that eventually became Pennzoil, and who was best known for leading Pennzoil to its $3 billion victory over Texaco following a four-year battle for control of Getty Oil, died March 28 in Houston after a long illness at age 81.
Kim Magness - Son of late cable pioneer Bob Magness and heir to the Tele-Communications, Inc. media empire, who was forced to resign from the board of Liberty Media on March 12 after a drug possession arrest, was found dead March 29 in a Denver hotel room under “suspicious” circumstances at the age of 50.
Henry Racamier - Millionaire steel magnate who took over the operations of Louis Vuitton leather goods business at the request of his wife’s family, and built the company into one of the world’s largest luxury goods groups, died March 29 while traveling in Sardinia at age 90.
Manuel Schnitzer - President of Schnitzer Steel Industries, who inherited the business from his father after WW2 (then called Alaska Junk) and turned it into one of the nation’s largest metal recyclers, died March 27 in Portland, OR at age 95.
Robert Tannenbaum - Prominent researcher in the field of business management, who with co-author Warren Schmidt published the landmark 1973 article in the Harvard Business Review “How To Choose a Leadership Pattern”, which described a leadership continuum, died March 15 of congestive heart failure in Carmel, CA at age 87.
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