News and Entertainment
Denis ApIvor - British opera composer, who despite several early successes of such operas as "Yerma", had his many works largely ignored by the musical establishment (none of his extensive collection of works are currently available on CD), who began composing at age 10, and who, after being reviewed for one of his operas, abandoned any effort to bring his works to the attention of directors or performers for thirty years, but who only recently has had his works gain attention, died on May 27 in Robertsbridge, East Sussex at age 88.
Iona Brown - Violinist and conductor who was a director of London's Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (the world's most recorded chamber orchestra) and of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and who also led concerts with the London Philharmonic, the Danish Philharmonic and the Tokyo Philharmonic, died of cancer on June 6 in Salisbury, England. She was 63 years old.
Francis Brunn - World-renowned juggler who used his talents as a gymnast and showman to entertain circus-goers for more than 50 years, who, in 1948, became the first juggler ever to work the center ring as a solo headliner while working for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and who at the beginning of his career could juggle a dozen objects simultaneously but who later became more interested in perfecting an austere but demanding art of minimalism (e.g. control of one object like making a ball travel from his toe up his entire body by moving only his legs and torso), died on May 28 in Frankfurt, Germany at age 81 as the result of complications from heart surgery.
Judy Campbell - Prolific London West-End actress (real name: Judy Gamble) whose joie-de-vivre was legendary, who became a favorite muse of the famous English playwright Noel Coward, who was a fixture on BBC televsion in programs such as "Anna Karenina" and "The Forsyth Saga" and in movies including "Convoy", "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and "There's A Girl In My Soup," died June 6 at the age of 88.
Ray Charles - Towering figure in American popular music, blind since the age of 7, who burst onto the scene in 1954 with his blend of gospel and blues music on "I Got A Woman" which many credit as the beginning of soul music, who went on to score 76 hits on the pop charts including number 1 hits like "I Can't Stop Loving You", "Georgia On My Mind" and "Hit the Road Jack", whose 1962 album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music", which broke new ground by combining soul and country music, is considered by many to be one of the best albums of all time, and who won 12 Grammy awards during his career, continuing to perform until 2004, died June 10 of complications of liver disease in Beverly Hills at the age of 73.
Roland "Chubby" Cloutier - Childrens' television and radio personality, who, after being transferred to Hawaii with the Navy in 1949 created a radio and television show called "Just Kids" which in the 1950's was picked up by KCAL-TV (out of Los Angeles, California), died June 2 in Honolulu at the age of 85 after a twenty-year battle with multiple sclerosis.
Augie Colon - Percussionist and the voice behind the exotic birdcalls and jungle sounds of Martin Denny's 1956 hit song, "Quiet Village", who was known to some as the "Grandfather of percussion in Hawaii", who recorded several albums of his own music outside of his long association with Denny, and whose good looks and showmanship made him a top performer, died of complications from diabetes on June 4 in Honolulu at the age of 76.
Simon Cumbers - Well-known BBC cameraman who moved into photojournalism after a career as a television and radio reporter, who recently had argued against the idea of journalists carrying weapons in a debate about media personnel operating in war zones, and who was working on a report about increasing fear among workers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was shot and killed at age 36 on June 6 in a suspected attack by Al-Qaida operatives.
Edmund DiGiulio - Movie tech wiz who developed the much-used "steadicam" (a mounting system that provides stable images while allowing operators to move freely), who is a five-time Scientific and Technical Academy Award winner (including the receipt of the Gordon E. Sawyer Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001), who holds more than a dozen patents for developments in computer and cinema technology (many of which were developed specifically for director Stanley Kubrick), died June 4 of congestive heart failure at the age of 76 in Malibu, California.
Tomas "Quorthon" Forsberg - Mysterious leader of the Swedish one-man black metal band Bathory, which is considered one of the most influential European metal acts of the 80's and 90's, whose best known albums were 1987's "Under The Sign of the Black Mark" and 1988's "Blood Fire Death", and who was the son of black metal founding father B?rje Forsberg, was found dead at his apartment in Stockholm on June 7 at the age of 39. The cause of death was heart failure.
Jeff Frolio - Photojournalist who had worked at Omaha, Nebraska station KETV for the last 20 years, who twice won the Nebraska Photographer of the Year award, who on June 10 was covering a story about a dangerous Omaha highway intersection and an accident that had killed two teenagers the month before, was hit by a car and killed while photographing a memorial at the scene of the accident. He was 45 years old.
Mary Holland - Distinguished U.K. journalist, who for many years covered the political violence in Northern Ireland, including Bloody Sunday, in 1972, when she stood right behind the Catholic priests who pulled two dying demonstrators from the crowd, and whose determination to explain Ireland, north and south, and its conflicts, caused her to be labeled for much of her career at the Observer as a "Provo lover", and who was known for her fairness and ability to see both sides of a battle, died June 5 in Dublin, Ireland at age 69 after several years of failing health.
Graeme Kelling - Guitarist with legendary Scottish band Deacon Blue, who had a string of hits in the late 80s and early 90s, including "Dignity" and "Real Gone Kid," died of pancreatic cancer on June 10 in Glasgow, Scotland at the age of 47.
Thomas "Red" Kelly - Jazz bass player and Seattle-area bandleader who played with stars including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, and who ran a mock campaign for governor of Washington in 1976 which actually earned 8 percent of the vote, died of complications from cancer in Tacoma, Washington on June 9 at the age of 76.
Jonathan Kramer - Composer, musical theorist, and music professor at Columbia University, known for his eclectic compositions that drew from such different sources as jazz and Baroque music, whose compositions were performed in more than 30 countries by major ensembles, including the London Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic and the Seoul Philharmonic, died of leukemia on June 3 in New York City. He was 61 years old.
Bill Lowery - Music publisher and pop music impresario whose company, The Lowery Group, published and promoted music for more than 50 years and was named the top music publishing house in the country in 1969, who brought to light such classic songs as "Be-Bop-a-Lula", "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and "I Love the Nightlife", and who was also the first person to be elected to the Georgia Music Hall of Fame (the second was Ray Charles), died of cancer on June 8 in Atlanta at the age of 79.
Trudy Marshall - Actress who began as a New York photographers' model and went on to star in the classic Laurel and Hardy film "Dancing Masters" and appear in numerous films of the 1940s, died May 23 of lung cancer in Century City, California. She was 84 years old.
Mike McCardell - Popular radio co-host of Portland, Maine's "WGAN Morning News with Mike and Ken," whose conservative-minded phone calls to a radio talk show prompted management to recruit him as a broadcaster, who left his job as a salesman and went on to host the show for four years, died of a heart attack on June 4 while visiting family in Pennsylvania. He was 52 years old.
Matthew Moore - Photojournalist with KBTX-TV3 in College Station, Texas and a recent graduate of Texas A & M University, was electrocuted and died on June 8 in Hearne, Texas, when the mobile broadcast mast he was deploying from the station's live news van came in contact with high voltage overhead power lines. He was 23 years old.
Ritsuko Okazaki - Singer and composer who was responsible for writing many theme songs for anime shows including "Love Hina," "Fruits Basket," and "UFO Princess Walkure," and whose profuse works have been featured in news programs, dramatic (non-Anime) series, radio, commercials & video games, and who released seven albums and 8 singles in Japan, died May 5 at age 44 as the result of septic shock.
Robert Quine - Legendary punk rock guitarist who was a member of Richard Hell's group, the Voidoids and played on albums by Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull and Tom Waits among others, who broke the mold of punk artists-he was older, nearly bald, wore sports coats onstage and held a law degree-- and who was a fixture of the New York rock scene of the 1970's and 80's, died of an apparent heroin overdose on May 31 in Manhattan at the age of 61. He had been despondent over the recent death of his wife and his death is thought to be a suicide.
Gene Raskin - Musician and songwriter who wrote the hit record "Those Were The Days" in 1962 using a Russian folk melody, who sang the song with his wife Francesca (as the duo Gene & Francesca) in a London nightclub in which Paul McCartney was a patron, and who saw the song become a hit for Mary Hopkin on McCartney's Apple label (#1 in the U.K., #2 in the U.S.) in 1968, died June 7 at the age of 94 in New York City.
Archie Smith - Actor of stage and screen who made his Broadway debut in 1948 with Helen Hayes in "The Madwoman of Chaillot", whose film credits include "The Slender Thread", "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead" and "Asteroid", and who was a longtime actor with the Denver Center Theatre Company, died June 8 of Parkinson's disease at his Denver home at the age of 86.
Barbara Whiting Smith - Singer and actress who got her start as a child actress daughter of composer Richard Whiting, who appeared in films such as "Home Sweet Homicide", "Centennial Summer" and "Dangerous When Wet", who co-hosted a 1950's TV series with her sister, singer Margaret Whiting, called "Those Whiting Girls", and who earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, died June 9 of cancer at a hospital in Pontiac, Michigan at the age of 73.
Howard Swindle - Investigative reporter and editor at the Dallas Morning News who reported, wrote, or edited some of the best-known and most important stories at the newspaper in the past three decades, who later in his career directed three Pulitzer Prize winning projects for articles on racial segregation in public housing, a plane crash analysis and a series disclosing beatings and abuse under color of law, and who was the author of three true crime books and one novel, "Jitter Joint", died June 9 in Dallas at the age of 58 after a five-year battle with cancer.
Nuria Toray - Spanish film, television and theatre star, who made her debut on the big screen in the film "Susana y yo" (Susanna and Me, 1957), and appeared in numerous other films such as "El Bosque del Lobo" (The Ancines Woods, 1971) and "El Amor brujo" (Bewitched Love, 1972), who won the best actress title at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 1995, and who also had a starring role in the series "Una mito llamado?" where she played various figures in classic mythology, died June 8 of colon cancer in Madrid at the age of 70.
Alistair Taylor - Personal assistant to Beatle's manager Brian Epstein, who was a true insider during the early days of the Beatle's success, who later served as General Manager at Apple Records and who wrote a book about his experiences "The Secret History", died June 9 at the age of 69.
Donald Trumbull - Academy Award-winning special effects magician who was known for his technical innovations in the effects field, including his design of process projection systems and motion-control camera systems, who early in his career worked as an effects rigger for "The Wizard Of Oz" and who later helped build and design equipment for George Lucas' "Star Wars," died June 7 of natural causes at the age of 95 in Graeagle, California.
Manu Tupou - Fiji-born actor who appeared in such films as "Hawaii", "A Man Called Horse" and "The Extraordinary Seaman", but who may be best remembered for his recurring role as Eddie Chu on Hawaii-5-0, died June 5 in Los Angeles at the age of 69.
M. Searle Wright - Composer, teacher and master of both classic and theater pipe organ who wrote music that church choirs in North America have been singing for more than half a century, who was a professor of music at the State University of New York, a former director of chapel music at St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University and a former president of the American Guild of Organists, died on June 3 in Binghamton, New York at the age of 86.
John Wylie - Actor best known for his roles on Broadway in shows like "Grand Hotel" and "Born Yesterday", who also acted on screen in movies including "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Fletch Lives" and on television shows like "Law And Order", died May 11 in New York City of natural causes at the age of 79.
Sports
Roosevelt Brown - Hall of Fame football player with the New York Giants, who spent 51 years in that organization as an offensive tackle, assistant coach and scout, who during his playing career was named to eight All-Pro teams and 10 Pro Bowls, who won one NFL title with the Giants and six division titles, and who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975, died June 9 of a heart attack at his home in Columbus, New Jersey at the age of 71.
Micah Harris - Football player at Duke University who as a junior last season was a defensive end and had 32 tackles, 2? sacks and two forced fumbles for the Blue Devils, and who was expected to anchor the defensive line again this fall, was killed in a car accident on June 11 near Warfield, Virginia. He was 21 years old.
Ladislav Hecht - Czechoslovakian tennis player and one of the best players in Europe during the 1930's, who was captain of Czechoslovakia's Davis Cup team, playing from 1930 to 1939, who fled for the U.S. when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia (he was Jewish), but who has remained a national sporting hero in his home country, died May 27 in New York City at the age of 94.
Krish Mackerdhuj - President of South Africa's United Cricket Board from 1992 to 1998, who was the first non-white to hold the position, and who later served as South Africa's ambassador to Japan until 2003, died May 26 in Durban, South Africa of a heart attack at age 64.
Ralph Moody - Stock car racing star of the famous Holman-Moody team of the 50's and 60's, who (with partner John Holman - died 1975) built Ford racing cars that took 93 checkered flags in 366 NASCAR Winston Cup races, driven by David Pearson, who won consecutive national championships in 1968 and 1969, and who was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994, died June 9 at his home in Mooresville, North Carolina at the age of 86.
Ronalda Pierce - Women's basketball player for Florida State University, who had just completed her freshman season, averaging 5.3 points and 3.5 rebounds a game, and who at 6'5" was the tallest player on the team, died June 8 at her Tallahassee, Florida apartment from an aneurysm that may have resulted from a genetic disease that typically strikes tall people. She was 19 years old.
Bob Schmitz - NFL linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings during the 1960's, who also enjoyed a 33 year career as a NFL scout for the Steelers and the New York Jets, whose claim to fame as a player was tackling Hall of Famer Jim Brown in the end zone to beat the Cleveland Browns in 1963, died of a heart attack on June 8 in Hempstead, New York. He was 65 years old.
Art and Literature
Raymond Bayless - Landscape painter and author on parapsychology, whose paintings hang in public buildings around the country including the National Air and Space Museum, the State Department and the Pentagon, who created book jacket covers for books by authors such as Ray Bradbury, and who published several books on the paranormal including "Animal Ghosts", "Phone Calls From the Dead" and "Voices from Beyond", died May 25 in Los Angeles of natural causes at the age of 84.
Morton Cooper Feinberg - Author whose novel "The King" (under the penname Morton Cooper), about the political aspirations and sexual misadventures of an Italian-American singer (rumored to be based on Frank Sinatra), was dubbed "trash fiction", but went on to sell over 3 million copies, died of complications from a blood clot on May 18 in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 79 years old.
Fiore De Henriquez - Internationally acclaimed sculptress whose work included life-sized statues, monumental public commissions and nearly 500 portrait busts of such figures as Queen Mother, Laurence Olivier, President Kennedy, and even a young Oprah Winfrey, whose sculptures often reflected gender dualities and tortured mythical figures, and who kept a painful secret of her own all of her life, only recently revealing that she was a hermaphrodite who struggled for much of her life with gender identity, died on June 5 at the age of 82.
Ian MacKillop - Literary English scholar and pupil of famed Cambridge literary critic F.R. Leavis, best known for a 500-page biography of his teacher, and who was also an esteemed professor for more than 35 years at Sheffield University, died of a heart attack on May 28 in Derbyshire, England at the age of 65.
George L. Mauner - Art historian and professor at Penn State University who was one of the world's foremost authorities on 19th century French and Swiss painting, best known for his research on French painter Edouard Manet, and for rediscovering painter Cuno Amiet, an early modernist who was thought to be the missing link between French postimpressionism and German expressionism, died of complications from chemotherapy on June 7 at the age of 73.
Eugene Ruggles - Poet and activist known for his "deep image" verse and for organizing large and popular San Francisco poetry readings and benefits, who appeared often in poetry magazines and journals and whose 1977 book "Lifeguard In The Snow" was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, was found dead (he'd recently had open-heart surgery) on June 3 at a hotel room in Petaluma, California at the age of 68.
Christian Staub - Swiss-born photographer best known for his subdued portraits of life in Europe during World War II, whose photos have been shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany, and are among the permanent collections at a number of Swiss and German museums and galleries, died May 30 of emphysema in Seattle at the age of 85.
Egon von Furstenberg - Fashion designer who was known as the "prince of high fashion", who got his start in the industry as a buyer for Macy's, who in the 70's began designing clothing for larger women and put out his first line of pullovers and men's shirts, but who mainly known for his high fashion clothing (gowns and expensive dresses), which was rich with color and the romantic look, died on June 11 at age 57 of unknown causes (he had been suffering from bronchitis just prior to his death) in Rome.
Politics and Military
Richard E. Bush - Marine Corporal who was awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S.'s highest military honor for bravery, who while prostrate being treated for injuries during the battle for Okinawa against the Japanese, saw a hand grenade land amid the Marines, who pulled it to himself and absorbed the explosive charge in his body, miraculously surviving but losing several fingers and the sight in one eye, died June 7 of a heart ailment at his home in Waukegan, Illinois at the age of 79.
Mike Clausen - Soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S.'s highest military honor, for bravery during the Vietnam War, who on January 31, 1970 rescued a platoon of Marines trapped in a minefield, carrying one dead and 11 wounded men through the minefield to a waiting helicopter near Da Nang, and who also was awarded a Purple Heart and the Air Medal, died May 30 of liver failure in a Dallas hospital at the age of 56.
Bassam Salih Kubba - Director-general of Iraq's Foreign Ministry in Baghdad, who was appointed to the position in April, 2004, who was a career diplomat and had served as Iraq's ambassador to China during Saddam Hussein's rule, was killed on June 12 when insurgents fired on his car in Baghdad while he was on his way to work. He was 60 years old.
George "Buffy" Warner - Controversial former West Virginia state senator and brother of Republican gubernatorial nominee Monty Warner, known for once camping out at his desk on the Senate floor for several days to protest the Legislature's failure to resolve a state budget dispute, died from an accidental fall while on his yacht at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina on June 11. He was 53 years old.
Xenophon Zolotas - Prime minister of Greece in the late 80's, who as one of Greece's leading economists, helped lead the revival of Greece's shattered economy after World War II, who was one of the four leading international economists entrusted with the shaping of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) in 1960, and who served as a caretaker prime minister of that country in 1989 and 1990, died June 10 at his home in Athens at the age of 100.
Social and Religion
Arthur and Sylvia Horowitz - Brooklyn couple (Arthur was a former Carwash owner) returning from a celebratory trip to Atlantic City for their 47th wedding anniversary on June 10, who, while they were holding hands and walking back to their car after stepping off a casino bus, were struck and killed by a drunk driver, Joseph Chabbott (who blew a .11 on the Breathalyzer test.) Arthur was 76 and Sylvia was 69.
Calamity Jane - Bloodhound who helped find missing women Erika Dalquist and Dru Sjodin, who, during the search for Dalquist, bolted from her owner's hold and was found later lying near Dalquist's remains, who spent the winter in North Dakota searching for Sjodin, and had been involved in searches in locations from the Midwest U.S. to Nairobi and Kenya, died June 9 in Conde, South Dakota at the age of 10 (perhaps from a bacterial infection she caught while searching for Dalquist), just days after sitting next to Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty at Dalquist's memorial service.
Gwendolyn Johnson - Founder of the Jelani House in San Francisco, a drug rehabilitation program for pregnant and post-partum mothers that became a national model, died June 8 of cancer at her home in Hercules, California at the age of 58.
Rabbi William M. Kramer - Scholar and Jewish magazine editor who was the rabbi of Burbank's Temple Beth Emet for more than 30 years and was also a lawyer, professor, prolific writer and speaker and an actor, who played a rabbi in numerous movies and TV shows, including "The Seventh Sign" and "L.A. Law", and whose image appeared on everything from greeting cards to yogurt containers, died of congestive heart failure on June 8 in Los Angeles at the age of 84.
Jerry Seawright - Founder and premier director of the Concord Blue Devils drum and bugle corps, winner of 11 world titles in the Drum Corps International championships beginning in 1976, died May 16 at his home in Penn Valley, California at the age of 78.
William Zuern - Ohio man who in 1984 while serving a life sentence in an Ohio prison for murder, fashioned a knife out of a metal bucket handle and used it to stab jail officer Phillip Pence to death, was executed by lethal injection on June 8 at the state prison in Lucasville, Ohio at the age of 45.
Business and Science
George Bean - Airport executive who was the brainchild behind the unique Tampa International Airport, who helped design both the oft-copied hub-and-spoke layout as well as the strict rules regarding everything from banning sales of chewing gum and popcorn (they're too messy), strict rules for taxis and taxi drivers (including dress and personal hygiene), to the clutter-less, carpeted terminals, rules which have made the airport one of the U.S.'s favorites by passengers in numerous surveys, died June 8 in Tampa, Florida at the age of 79.
Borge Boeskov - Boeing's first president who spent almost his entire career working for the airplane manufacturer, who in 1974 was the marketing manager for the Boeing 737, now the all-time best selling passenger jet, died June 9 in Seattle at the age of 68 after a long illness.
Harvey Brooks - Scientist at Harvard University whose scientific work covered the fields of solid-state physics, nuclear engineering, and underwater acoustics, and who was one of the first to study the relationships between science and public policy (science's role in making the world a better place), and who served on science advisory committees in the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died on May 28 of congestive heart failure at the age of 88 in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home.
Benjamin Krass - Suit salesman known for his manic late-night television commercials in the Philadelphia area, who spent 54 years selling his polyester suits and flashy mensware from his store, Krass Bros. to stars like Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali and Joey Bishop, died June 7 in Philadelphia at the age of 85 after a battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
Robert Multhauf - Longtime science historian and curator at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology, who served as its director from 1966 to 1969, who for 15 years was the editor of Isis, the journal of the History of Science Society, and who published several science history texts including "Origins of Chemistry" and "Neptune's Gift: A History of Common Salt", died May 8 of a heart attack at his home in Raphael, California at age 84.
James Roche - Chairman and CEO of General Motors from 1967 to 1971 who started in the auto industry as a statistician and rose to the top of ranks over a 44-year career, during which time he helped promote equal opportunity by appointing the company's first black board member and worked to establish GM as a good corporate neighbor to the city, who also served on the boards of PepsiCo, Eckerd, and the New York Stock Exchange and was a member of the Automotive Hall of Fame, died on June 6 in Belleair, Florida at the age of 97.
David Alan Stewart - Pioneering educator of the deaf, who created innovative interactive devices for learning and communicating in American Sign Language, whose portable device that communicated in both spoken and sign language was named computer software of the year by Discover magazine in 1995, and who co-wrote numerous texts including "Teaching Deaf & Hard of Hearing Students: Content, Strategies, & Curriculum" and "Sign Language Interpreting: Its Art & Science", died June 7 in Mason, Michigan following treatment for prostate cancer. He was 50 years old.
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