News and Entertainment
Alan Ackerman - Veteran market analyst and commentator whose expertise and insight on business and market developments was often sought out by CNN/Money and other financial news services, who recently published a book on how to make smart investments in uncertain times called Investing Under Fire, died July 9 of a stroke in New York City at age 73.
Eddie Allen - Singer, accordion player and sometimes emcee for The Happy Gang, Canadas most popular radio program that ran from 1937 until 1959, and whose members were some of the countrys biggest celebrities during the programs heyday, died July 5 at age 82.
Fernando Arbex - Spanish composer, singer and musician who founded the seminal groups Los Brincos and Barrabas, and who composed songs for Miguel Ros, Elvis Presley, Miguel Bos and Jennifer Lpez, died July 5 of cancer in Madrid, Spain at age 62.
Clyde Skip Battin - Bass player and singer who is best known as half of the late 50s pop duo Skip & Flip who had a pair of hits It Was I and Cherry Pie, who was a member of the Byrds from 1969 to 1972, and who also appeared with the Flying Burrito Brothers and New Riders of the Purple Sage, died July 6 in Edmonton, Alberta of Alzheimers complications at age 69.
Robert Batscha - Longtime president of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York, who was responsible for expanding the museums collection of TV and radio programs and opening a branch in Beverly Hills, died July 4 in New York of cancer at age 58.
Ayres Campos - Actor well known to TV audiences in Brazil for his role from 1954 to 1966 as the super hero Capito 7 (Captain Seven, a mixture between Superman and Captain Marvel) in nearly 1000 weekly episodes, died July 6 in So Paulo, Brazil of pneumonia at age 80.
Moran Caplat - Manager of the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in Britain from 1949 to 1981, who built the Glyndebourne into one of the most prestigious musical happenings in Europe, died June 19 in Kent, England at age 86.
Larry Ching - San Francisco singer at the legendary Forbidden City nightclub in the 40s and 50s, who was known as the Chinese Frank Sinatra, and who had recently released his first and only CD, died July 5 in San Francisco of a brain aneurysm at age 82.
Mikey Dee - Fixture in the Boston music scene as a performer, promoter, radio host, and music critic, who was editor of the local fanzine the Noise and host of the radio show ''On the Town'' on WMFO, and who was paralyzed following surgery in 2000, died July 6 of pneumonia in Boston at age 40.
Buddy Ebsen - Broadway dancer who starred in several movie musicals in the 1930s including Captain January with Shirley Temple, and who was originally cast as the Tin Man in the 1939 film Wizard of Oz but bowed out due to illness (allergic reaction to the aluminum makeup), but who is best known to TV audiences as Jed Clampett in the 1960s TV show The Beverly Hillbillies, one of the highest rated TV shows in history, and as TV detective Barnaby Jones in the 1970s, died July 6 of respiratory failure in Torrence, CA at age 95.
Traynor Ora Halftown - Star from the early 1950s until the late 1990s of the Philadelphia childrens show Chief Halftown, which featured Halftown in full feathered Indian headdress showing cartoons and introducing live amateur acts, died July 5 in Brigantine, NJ of diabetes at age 86.
Ethan James - Keyboardist of the 1960s heavy metal group Blue Cheer, who joined the group in 1969 after their success with Summertime Blues, and recorded with the group on four albums under his real name Ralph Burns Kellogg, who went on to produce bands like The Bangles, Minutemen and Black Flag, and who in the 1990s played and recorded medieval music and released a series of albums of hurdy-gurdy music, died June 19 in San Francisco of liver cancer at age 56.
Marty Jennings - Up and coming violin player with the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, known for his multiple earrings and changing hairstyles, who was a popular performer at festivals around the state, and who played a concert on the evening July 5 in Newport, Oregon ending with a standing ovation, died July 6 in Newport of undisclosed causes at age 32.
Zahra Kazemi - Canadian freelance photographer, who was in Tehran, Iran taking pictures of recent student protests for the British agency, Camera Press, but was arrested on June 23 by the Iranian government and accused of being a spy, died while in custody on July 11 at age 54. Iranian officials claim she had a stroke while Canadian authorities believe she was beaten into a coma.
Bob Klosterman - Early Walt Disney Mouseketeer, who grew up to become an accountant and head up Mary Tyler Moore Entertainment, died July 1 of a heart attack in Eagle, ID at age 56.
Jeremy Little - Australian sound engineer who was in northern Iraq working for the American television network NBC, died July 6 at a hospital in Germany, one week after he was wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the U.S. military vehicle he was traveling in. He was 27 years old.
Betty Makia - New York hula dancer who was known as Auntie Betty and was the matriarch of the Hawaiian entertainment community on the east coast for decades, died July 2 in New York at age 88.
Tyler McVey - Prolific and familiar character actor who appeared in dozens of movies from the 1950s to 1970s in classics like The Caine Mutiny and The Day The Earth Stood Still to the not-so-classics like Hot Car Girl and Night of the Blood Beast, and who also acted in numerous TV shows (you name the show and its likely he guest starred in it), died July 4 of leukemia in Rancho Mirage, CA at age 91.
Catherine Kitty Parham - Grammy-winning gospel singer who was a member of the Ward Singers, the well-known Philadelphia-based gospel group who recorded the memorable hits Packing Up, We Shall Be Changed and Surely, God is Able, and who appeared on Broadway in Langston Hughes Black Nativity, died June 27 in Philadelphia at age 77.
Sorrells Pickard (real name James W. Bazzell) - Country songwriter and singer who wrote songs recorded by Ringo Starr, David Rogers, Roy Clark, Hank Thompson, Kitty Wells, Slim Whitman and the Statler Brothers, and who appeared in the films Hardbodies, Hardbodies II and Running Hot, but who may be most famous for his line of peanut butter, Sorrells Pickard Gourmet Peanut Butter, featuring the rather disturbing TV ads, died July 5 of a heart attack in Keystone Heights, FL at age 63.
George Roper - British comedian best known for his appearances in the long-running and immensely popular British TV series The Comedians, whose jokes were often surreal and centered around wellies (Wellington boots), died July 1 of cancer at age 69.
Bebu Silvetti - Argentinian pianist, conductor and arranger, who produced works for artists like Larry Elgart, Luis Miguel, Vikki Carr, Eydie Gorme, Engelbert Humperdinck, Placido Domingo, Selena, Dionne Warwick and Paul Anka, and who had a Top 40 hit of his own in the U.S. with the 1977 disco nugget Spring Rain (as simply Silvetti), died July 5 in Miami of cancer at age 59.
Rufus Skip Ward - Actor and TV producer who appeared in films in the 50s and 60s like Run Silent, Run Deep, The Nutty Professor and Night of the Iguana, and numerous guest appearances on TV in shows like The F.B.I., The Beverly Hillbillies and The Rockford Files, but whose biggest claim to fame was producing the hit TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, died July 4 in Los Angeles after a long illness at age 69.
Barbara Weeks - Actress from the 1930's who appeared in nearly 40 films from 1930 to 1934 including reprising her Broadway role opposite Eddie Cantor in 1930's silent film "Whoopee!", who was named a Wampas Baby Star in 1930 (in those days a sure thing to propel you to stardom), who attended the lavish parties at Pickfair and spent many weekends as the guest of William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies at San Simeon, but who quit acting in 1937 and disappeared from view (she was even reported dead in 1954 with an announcement in Variety), died July 2 in Las Vegas, two days short of her 90th birthday.
Richard Wild - Freelance British journalist who was in Baghdad determined to tell the untold story of postwar Iraq, who had just filmed a story about life in a Palestinian refugee camp in the city which he hoped would be his big break, was shot to death on July 5 outside Baghdad's natural history museum while standing in a crowd trying to hail a cab. He was 24 years old and became the 17th journalist killed in Iraq since the conflict began.
Sports
Clarence Cagle - Longtime track superintendent at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, who is credited with rescuing the dilapidated speedway from oblivion after WW2 (it had been closed during the war), and who spent the next 50 years working either as superintendent or consultant for the track, died July 5 in Daytona Beach, FL at age 88.
Jett Field - Jet dragster and funny car driver known as The Idaho Kid, who was a 25 year circuit veteran, who holds the distinction of winning every single Firebird major event Pro Title in his string of Funny Car rides, and who recently toured with the jet dragster name Jett Force, died July 8 in Spokane, WA from injuries sustained in a crash at the Spokane Raceway on July 5. His age was unstated.
Roman Lyashenko - Hockey player from Russia who played for two seasons with the Dallas Stars of the NHL in 2000 and 2001, and part of one season with the New York Rangers, and who was recently in the minor leagues at Hartford, was found dead in a hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey, apparently a suicide by hanging at the age of 24.
Art and Literature
Nathaniel Burt - Author and poet best known for the 1963 best-seller The Perennial Philadelphians: The Anatomy of an American Aristocracy, which was an expose of the citys elite families, and caused quite a ruckus after its publication, died July 1 in Plainsboro, NJ at age 89.
Lewis Coser - Sociologist who wrote or edited more than two dozen books including The Functions of Social Conflict, a mainstay of post-WW2 sociology, and who focused much of his research on how intellectuals interact with real-world economic and power concerns, died July 8 in Cambridge, MA at age 89.
Winston Graham - British novelist best known for his Poldark series of books about life in 18th century Cornwall, who wrote 40 novels during his lifetime including Marnie, made into an Alfred Hitchcock movie starring Sean Connery, and The Walking Stick, made into a film starring Samantha Eggar, died in London at age 93. Date and cause of death were not stated.
Tom Hollatz - Wisconsin-based author and radio personality who wrote books ranging from the John Dillinger biography Gangster Holidays to the ghost story collection The Haunted Northwoods, and who was the host of the syndicated radio talk show Outdoor Edition, died of a heart attack on July 8 in Boulder Junction, WI at age 64.
Josephine Jacobsen - U.S. poet and short-story writer, whose poetry often appeared in The New Yorker magazine, who served as the U.S. poet laureate in 1971, and whose book of collected poems, In the Crevice of Time was a National Book Award finalist in 1997, died July 9 of kidney failure in Cockeysville, MD at age 94.
Lotte Klemperer - Daughter of the German conductor Otto Klemperer, who served as her fathers secretary, negotiator and administrator, who became the guardian of his legacy after he died in 1973, and who was the sister of the late actor Werner Klemperer (Col. Klink), died July 1 in Zurich, Switzerland at age 79.
Dorothy Miller - One of the first curators of New Yorks Museum of Modern Art from 1934 to 1969, who was responsible for pioneering exhibitions of new American artists known as her Americans shows and included painters like Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella and Jasper Johns, died July 12 in New York City at age 99.
Richard Newman - A white man who became one of the foremost scholars of African-American studies at Harvard University, whose career included writing essays and books including The Harvard Guide to African-American History, and compiling vast bibliographies of African-American literature for publishing companies, died June 30 of a brain tumor in Boston at age 73.
Carolyn Patterson - Senior editor at National Geographic magazine known as the Grande Dame of the Geographic, who for 20 years directed the writing of its picture captions and texts for its supplement maps, and who was the first woman to appear on the magazines masthead, died July 7 of cirrhosis of the liver in Washington, DC at age 82.
Kathleen Raine - British poet and scholar of Yeats and Blake, who was known as a grande dame of European letters, whose works tended towards the mystical and fused reason with the ethereal, and among whose published works include Inner Journey of the Poet, Collected Poems and Blake and Antiquity, died July 6 in London at age 95.
Anne Rogovin - Teacher and author of self-help books for children including the highly-regarded books Learning by Doing: Home & School Activities for All Children, Let Me Do It! and Turn Off the TV and
