News and Entertainment
Elie Abel - Print and broadcast journalist for the New York Times and NBC, who appeared regularly on the evening news with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley during the 1960’s, who served as dean of journalism at both Columbia and Stanford Universities, and whose well-known book, “The Missle Crisis”, is still considered a definitive text about the Cuban missile crisis, died July 23 in Rockville, Maryland as the result of effects from a stroke and Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 83 years old.
Peter Baird - Master puppeteer and the son of legendary puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird, who was trained from the age of 5 and worked on the children's television show "Shining Time Station," as well as the movies "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and "Howard the Duck " and hundreds of commercials and industrial productions, died of esophageal cancer on July 16 in New York City. He was 52 years old.
Bill Brown - Lead guitarist and vocalist for the re-formed country rock group Ozark Mountain Daredevils, who had played and toured with the band since 1989 (after their heyday), and who had recently began playing with the Titanic Blues Band, was killed in a fire, along with Don Shipps, at a duplex in Springfield, Missouri during the early morning hours on July 23. He was 44 years old.
Arthur Crier - Doo-wop singer who was a member of the 1950’s vocal groups the Chimes, the Hummers the Mellows, and the Halos (best known for their top 40 hit song “Nag” in 1961), who sang background on dozens of hits records for such artists as Gene Pitney, Dion, Bobby Vinton, Johnny Nash, Little Eva, Johnny Mathis and Ben E. King, and who went on to as successful career as a record producer and songwriter, working with such musical acts as the Four Tops, Thelma Houston and GQ, died July 22 of a heart attack in Warsaw, North Carolina at the age of 69.
Georgine Darcy - Actress and dancer known for her role as "Miss Torso" (the across-the-courtyard dancer) in the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie "Rear Window", who was paid only $350 for the role that would make her a pinup, who was one of the last surviving cast members from the 1954 film, and who appeared in several other films and TV shows after "Rear Window", including a regular role the early 60's TV show "Harrigan and Son", died July 18 of natural causes at her home in Malibu, California at the age of 68.
Sacha Distel - French chanson singer and jazz guitarist who recorded more than 200 songs in his career, including "Scoubidou", his first hit-in 1958, "Oh quelle nuit," "Le soleil de ma vie" (a version of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life") and "Mon beau chapeau," who hosted a 1960's show in France that discovered many young new musical talents, and who sang with such greats as Liza Minelli, Quincy Jones and Dionne Warwick, died after a long illness on July 22 in France at age 71.
Antonio Gades - Flamenco dancer who was considered to be the best Spanish dancer of his time, who helped regenerate the art and appeared in ten films, including “Carmen” and “Blood Wedding,” and who was a committed communist (he requested that his ashes be shipped to Cuba to be buried alongside guerilla fighters), died July 20 at a hospital in Madrid at age 67 after a battle with cancer.
Jerry Goldsmith - Academy Award-winning composer, who created the memorable music for scores of television shows such as "Star Trek", "The Waltons", and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", and movies including "Chinatown" and "The Omen" (for which he won an Oscar), died in Beverly Hills, California on July 21 after a long battle with cancer. He was 75.
Sebastian Graham-Jones - Actor and director who worked for many years in London’s famed West End and under Sir Laurence Olivier at the National Theater, and who directed episodes of the popular British television show Coronation Street, died on July 18 in London. He was 56 years old.
Illinois Jacquet - Innovative jazz and blues saxophonist (born Jean-Baptiste Jacquet), who during the 1940’s and 50’s recorded more than 300 original compositions, including three of his biggest hits, "Black Velvet," "Robbins' Nest" and "Port of Rico", who played and recorded with nearly every jazz and blues legend of his era, including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald, and who jammed with President Clinton on the lawn of the White House after the 1993 presidential inauguration, died July 22 of a heart attack at his New York City home. He was 81 years old.
Carlos Kleiber - Eccentric conductor considered to be one of the greatest conductors of his time, who lead the Bavarian Opera from 1968 to 1973, who often went years without conducting and never gave a press interview but whose poetic way of communicating how passages should be played inspired great love and appreciation of the music, died on July 13 in Konjsica, Slovenia after a long illness at the age of 74.
Bella Lewitzky - Modern dance pioneer whose stand on freedom of expression more than once led to conflict with the U.S. government, who remained defiant during an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, and whose company's refusal to oblige with the National Endowment for the Arts mandatory anti-obscenity pledge led to a 1991 lawsuit (the result of which was the pledge being deemed unconstitutional), died July 16 in Southern California after suffering a stroke. She was 88.
Thomas F. Madigan - Producer of PBS documentaries, including Emmy-award winning "The Hunter and the Hunted" (about Nazi war criminals), who also was a head of various stations' corporate underwriting departments, and who secured funding for the four-time award winning "The Adams Chronicles," which aired in 1976, died July 8 in New York City at age 85 of complications from heart surgery.
Mehmood - Bollywood comic actor who appeared in hundreds of movies including “Padosan,” “Bombay To Goa” and “Kunwara Baap,” whose acting career began when he was just 11 years old, and whose flair for improvisational acting brought a new facet to comic acting in masala films, died July 23 at age 72 in Pennsylvania where he was being treated for heart or lung disease.
Joan Morgan - Actress and Britain’s oldest living movie star, a prominent silent movie performer who went on to become a successful playwright and novelist after her acting career ended, died on July 22 in Oxfordshire, England. She was 100 years old.
Richard Ney - Actor-turned-investment advisor whose early films, including “Mrs Miniver” and “Joan of Arc,” led to a lackluster acting career, prompting him to turn to investment advising, who gained instant credibility when he predicted the 1962 stock market crash, who went on to write the well-known column “The Ney Report” as well as publishing several books (including the bestseller “The Wall Street Jungle”), died of a heart ailment on July 18 at his home in Pasedena, California at age 87.
Carlos Paredes - Composer and musician known as the “king of the Portuguese guitar,” who began playing the instrument at the age of 4 and is credited with elevating the 12-string guitar to the concert hall from the street, who also composed for the cutting-edge chamber group Kronos Quartet, died on July 23 of kidney failure at the age of 79.
Radio Ralin - Bulgarian satirist and dissident poet whose humorous poems and anecdotes of good versus evil criticized the country’s Communist regime and inspired generations of Bulgarians, giving them trust in the values of freedom, but who, as a result, saw his work seized, destroyed and banned for seven years by order of the Communist party, died of cancer on July 21 in Sofia, Bulgaria at the age of 81.
Sergio Reggiano - Italian-born French actor who appeared in more than 80 films and was also one of the most acclaimed singers in France, popular with young and old listeners because of his bad boy image, who later went on to become a successful painter, died of a heart attack in Paris on July 23. He was 82 years old.
Pat Roach - British actor and former European heavyweight wrestling champion who starred in the popular British drama "Auf Wiedersehen Pet", and who appeared in the three Indiana Jones films, the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again," "Conan The Destroyer" and "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," died from cancer on July 17 in Birmingham, England at the age of 67.
Don Shipps - Top Midwestern blues musician and bass player, and founder of the Titanic Blues Band, a staple at Midwestern U.S. blues and jazz festivals for more than 10 years, whose band was scheduled to hold a live recording session the evening of July 23, was killed in a fire, along with musician Bill Brown, at a duplex in Springfield, Missouri during the early morning hours on July 23. He was 51 years old.
James Williams - Jazz pianist and professor of music who recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, appearing on 10 of Blakey’s albums and playing with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, and who recorded a number of albums as a frontman with the Magical Trio, who was also the director of jazz studies at William Paterson University, died on July 20 of liver cancer in New York City. He was 53 years old.
Irvin Yeaworth - Director of the 1958 sci-fi cult classic The Blob, who made more than 400 films on religious and social topics, and who led tours to the Middle East over 25 years, died 7/19 in a car accident in Jordan where he was building a major entertainment complex. He was 78.
Karel Zich - Singer and guitarist known as the "Czech Elvis Presley", who recorded dozens of hit records in Czechoslovakia, died July 13 while vacationing in Porto-Vecchio, Corsica, France (he collapsed after diving). He was 55 years old.

Sports
Lowell "Cotton" Fitzsimmons - Legendary basketball coach who ranks 10th on the all-time NBA coaching list with 832 victories, who coached in the NBA in Atlanta, Buffalo, Kansas City, San Antonio and Phoenix (twice – at the beginning and end of his career) in a coaching career that spanned over 29 years beginning in 1970, who won Coach of the Year with the Kansas City Kings in 1979 and with the Phoenix Suns in 1989, and who in recent years served as an executive vice-president for the Suns, as well as a television and radio commentator for the team, died July 24 of lung cancer at a hospital in Phoenix. He was 72 years old.
Marty Passaglia - Basketball star at Santa Clara University in the late 30s and early 40s, who played pro basketball with the Washington Capitols in the late 40s, playing for legendary coach Red Auerbach, died July 17 at his home in Capay, California at the age of 85.
Jones Ramsey - Sports media director at Texas A&M and then Texas, under legendary football coaches Paul "Bear" Bryant and Darrell Royal, who led the campaigns that helped players John David Crow (at Texas A&M) and Earl Campbell (at Texas) to win the Heisman Trophy, died July 19 of a heart attack at an Austin, Texas hospital. He was 83 years old.
Free House - Racehorse who finished in the top three in each of the Triple Crown races in 1997 (third in Kentucky Derby, second at Preakness, third at Belmont), and who was twice voted California horse of the year, was killed in a fall on July 19 at his farm in Bonsall, California. He was 10 years old.

Art and Literature
Ismail Fatah Al-Turk - Iraqi abstract artist considered a leader in the country’s modern art renaissance who is best known for his turquoise Martyr's Monument, a giant sculpture of two halves of an egg that surround a twisted Iraqi flag that symbolized allowing anguished souls of the dead to soar free, whose devotion to his art and lack of political affiliation was said to have saved him from the wrath of Saddam Hussein, died of cancer on July 21 in Baghdad. He was 69 years old.
André Castelot - Historian and author who worked tirelessly to make French history accessible to the common man, eventually taking his history lessons on radio and then television, who wrote 65 biographies (including books on Napoleon I and III, Marie Antoinette and Louis-Philippe), died July 18 in Neuilly-on-Seine, France at the age of 93.
Van Daren Coke - Photographer, art historian and the founding director of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, who donated more than 1,200 pieces from his personal collection to the museum and is credited with putting New Mexico on the photographic map, who also served as the director of the department of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the first museum to make photography a distinct department, and studied photography with Ansel Adams, died on July 11 in Albuquerque, NM at the age of 83.
Lalo Delgado - Mexican-born poet and activist regarded as one of the Chicano movement’s premier authors, who through his writings, crusaded for better treatment of immigrants and their families, who during the 1960’s was a colleague of Cesar Chavez and helped organize the nascent farm workers' rights movement, and whose best known poem, “Stupid America”, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Chicano movement, died July 23 in Denver at the age of 73.
J. Gordon Edwards - Mountain climber who was considered “the patron saint of climbing in Glacier National Park”, whose book “A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park”, is considered the definitive guide to hiking Glacier National Park, and who mapped routes to more than 70 peaks in the park, died July 19 while hiking with his wife on Divide Mountain, Montana. He was 85 years old.
Paul Foot - Author, campaigning journalist and nephew of former Labour leader Michael Foot, who is best known for co-founding the satirical magazine "Private Eye" which broke the 1971 Payola scandal and BP sanctions-busting in Rhodesia, and who won several awards including Journalist of the Year (What The Papers Say Awards, 1972 and 1989), Campaigning Journalist of the Year (British Press Awards, 1980) and the George Orwell Prize for Journalism (in 1994), died of a heart attack at a London airport on July 18 at the age of 66.
August Frugé - Director of the University of California Press from the 1940s through the 1970s, who broke new ground in university press by expanding book lists beyond academic works to include titles about nature, history and literature for a broader audience and by adopting techniques commonly used in the commercial book business, died on July 6 at his home in Twenty-nine Palms, California, having suffered two strokes. He was 94 years old.
Bernard Hyink - Political science educator who co-authored the popular textbook "Politics and Government in California," whose educational career was often interrupted by work with the California and United States Government, (including recruiting personnel for agencies involved in World War II), died as the result of internal bleeding June 24 in Fullerton, California at age 91.
Ruth B. McChesney - Artisan known for her unique miniature room recreations of historic sites which are displayed in museums in the U.S. and England, such as the du Pont family home and rooms in Princess Diana's ancestral home, died on July 18 of complications from lymphoma in Sewickley, Pennsylvania. She was 89 years old.
John Novak - Magician who wrote numerous books on magic, including the popular and comprehensive “Egg Bag Book” (explains how to pull eggs out of an apparently empty bag), who was as a consultant to leading magicians and served as a mentor for young people who wanted to learn the craft, died July 17 at his sister’s home in North Ridgeville, Ohio at the age of 73.
Josef Scaylea - Photographer who shot Mount Ranier and many other Northwestern sights, whose career spanned 50 years (including seven books, over 1,000 awards, and many years as chief photographer for the Seattle Times), who was named one of the 10 top Press Photographers of the Nation 10 times, and whose work appeared in Look magazine, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Life and The Saturday Evening Post, died at age 91 of natural causes on July 20. He suffered from heart disease.
Ronald Sukenick - Author and a pioneer in the field of American postmodernist literature who began his writing career in the 1960s and produced a dozen works of fiction and literary criticism, including “Up,” and “Mosaic Man,” and “Cows,” and whose last work is scheduled to be published in the fall, died on July 22 in New York of complications from inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease. He was 72 years old.

Politics and Military
Anne McGill Gorsuch Burford - Controversial head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Reagan and one of government's highest-ranking women when she was appointed in 1981, who drew criticism for trying to roll back EPA policies, cut staff and give states more responsibility before being cited for contempt of Congress and quitting under fire in 1983, died of cancer on July 18 in Denver. She was 62 years old.
Joe Cahill - Icon of the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.), who rose to the rank of I.R.A. chief of staff during more than 60 years in the movement, including time as a commander of the outlawed I.R.A. guerrilla group, died July 23 in Belfast, Ireland after a short illness at the age of 84.
Millicent Kondracke - Psychotherapist whose struggle with Parkinson’s Disease was recorded by her journalist husband in the book “Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson's Disease,” whose career in private therapy was curtailed when she decided to become a tireless activist for Parkinson’s issues and for federal support for stem cell research, succumbed to the disease on July 22 in Washington, DC at the age of 64.
Jackalyn Laxalt - First lady of Nevada from 1966 to 1970 when she was married to Paul Laxalt (who served as a Nevada U.S. senator, governor and lieutenant governor), who oversaw the refurbishing and remodeling of the governor's mansion, and was a longtime substance abuse counselor, died June 17 in Reno, Nevada of respiratory failure at the age of 77.
Patricia Sullivan Lindh - Womens' Rights advocate who served as President Gerald Ford's special assistant for womens' affairs, who was often praised for her candor, once saying that Watergate would not have occurred if more women had held top staff positions at the time, died from lung cancer on July 19 in San Diego at the age of 75.
Wilton Mkwayi - South African apartheid fighter who spent 20 years of a life sentence alongside former President Nelson Mandela for organizing an armed liberation movement, who in 1964 founded the armed wing of the anti-apartheid group Umkhonto We Sizwe, who was released from prison in 1989 at the end of apartheid and honored with the governing party's highest award, called Isithwalandwe, died July 23 of cancer at a hospital in King Williams Town, South Africa at the age of 81.
Lena Moi - First lady of Kenya, who was wife of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi who held the office from 1978 until 2002, died July 22 in Nairobi after a lengthy illness. Her age was not stated.
Robert Smylie - Governor of Idaho from 1954 to 1966 and the only man elected to three consecutive terms in his state, who was instrumental in the implementation of a state sales tax, the increase in the minimum wage, and the establishment of the state park system, died on July 17 in Boise, Idaho, having suffered from several illnesses, including emphysema, cancer, congestive heart failure and pneumonia. He was 89 years old.
Zenko Suzuki - Prime Minister of Japan from 1980 to 1982, who was appointed after the sudden death of his predecessor, Masayoshi Ohira, who helped refine the close post-World War II relationship between Japan and the United States, and who resigned in 1982 amid an escalating textbook scandal (mismanaging charges that textbooks where issued minimizing Japan's role in WW2), died July 19 at a hospital in Tokyo at the age of 93.
Ramachandra Veerappa - India's oldest parliamentarian, who was elected for the fifth time to parliament in April, 2004, who had served in government since 1952, and who was known in India for his spartan lifestyle and easy accessibility, died July 18 at a hospital in Bangladore, India at the age of 94.
Bob Wood - Candidate for Gwinnett County, Georgia chairman, who was battling for a spot in the November elections, died of a heart attack on July 16 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, just days before the Democratic primary vote. He was 65. Election officials have declared that any votes for him will not count, essentially giving the election to his opponent.
Queen Susan of Albania (aka Susan I. Zog) - Wife of Albanian pretender-king Leka, who married the monarch-in-exile in 1975, who spent many years moving from one country to another while her husband tried in vain to capture the crown once worn by his father, King Zog (forced into exile by the Germans during WW2), but who never saw her husband's dream to return to the monarchy come to light, died July 17 in Albania of a heart condition (or cancer) at the age of 63.

Business and Science
Richard Bloch - Co-founder of the tax preparation giant H&R Block with his brother Henry (H&R = Henry and Richard), who launched the family-owned bookkeeping service in 1955, which today is the U.S.'s largest tax preparation service, and who later in life became a passionate crusader for cancer patients (he was a cancer survivor himself), founding the R.A. Bloch Cancer Management Center and the R.A. Bloch Cancer Support Center in Kansas City, died July 21 of heart failure at his home in Kansas City at the age of 78.
Dr. David Blow - Groundbreaking biophysicist and part of the Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists at Cambridge University who researched the roots of biological life and the basic structures of proteins, who developed the X-ray crystallography technique, which allowed X-rays to be passed through a crystallized sample of a given protein and was used to unravel the molecular structures of animal and human proteins, died June 8 of lung cancer at his home in Appledore, England at the age of 72.
Sir Julian Hodge - Welsh financier and self made multi-millionaire who came from humble beginnings without formal education and went on to found his own bank, hold directorships of 165 companies at various times, and become a major philanthropist, and who was listed as the 18th richest person in Wales, died on July 17 in Jersey, Wales, three months before his 100th birthday.
John Kraus - Pioneering scientist and professor at Ohio State University who designed and built the "Big Ear," a radio telescope the size of three football fields that listened for radio signals from outer space, who also invented the helical antenna, which is used in global positioning satellites, died on July 18 in Delaware at the age of 94.
Ed Lewis - Biologist and Nobel Prize winner for his studies into how genes regulate development of specific regions of the body, who spent his career studying the genetics of the fruit fly and relating it to human embryonic development, and who was a member of the faculty at the California Institute for Technology for more than 55 years, died of cancer on July 21 in Pasadena, CA at the of 86.
Dr. Loren R. Mosher - Psychiatrist and National Institute of Mental Health official who developed a drug-free approach to treating schizophrenia, arguing that psychiatrists should rely less heavily on anti-psychotic medications and advocating alternative therapies and psychosocial treatments instead, who published more than 100 scientific articles and was a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego medical school, died of liver disease on July 10 in Berlin, Germany at the age of 70.
Emile Peynaud - French wine expert considered the “father of modern oenology” (wine science) and credited with major advances in the way wine is made and consumed, who helped modernize Bordeaux and improve the quality of wines worldwide during his 46 year career (the only interruption being when he was imprisoned by the Nazis during WWII), and who authored classic books on wine and taught oenology at Bordeaux University, died on July 18 of Parkinson's disease in Talence, France. He was 92 years old.
William W. Stead - Tuberculosis researcher whose 1990 study of 165 nursing homes in Arkansas received national attention as it suggested that blacks were more susceptible to the disease (and were infected a twice the rate of whites), challenging the belief that risk factors were based almost entirely on environment, and was director of the State Department of Health's tuberculosis program for 25 years, died July 8 of Alzheimers in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was 85.
George W. Thorn - Physician who helped transform the treatment of kidney diseases and other disorders (including groundbreaking work on the diagnosis and treatment of Addison's), who later turned his focus to organ transplantation, who was a longtime professor at Harvard Medical School, and who helped found the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, died of respiratory failure on June 26 in Beverly, Massachusetts. He was 98.
David Wallace - Architect and urban planner who helped develop Baltimore's Inner Harbor as well as parts of Philadelphia and Lower Manhattan and taught at the University of Pennsylvania, was found dead on July 19 along with his wife, Joan, in their Philadelphia home, after apparently committing suicide over the weekend by drinking a poisonous cocktail. He suffered from advanced prostate cancer and was 87 years old; she suffered from heart disease and was 83.