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Jess Lanier Cooper - (17) Son of actors Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone (who plays Joanne Moltisanti on "The Sopranos") who was born three months prematurely and developed a cerebral hemorrhage and severe cerebral palsy, but whose parents moved to Massachusetts (where, according to research, schools lead the country in mainstreaming kids into public educational systems,) where he was on his school's honor roll, communicated with a computer and learned to ride horses, and who enjoyed water sports that he learned at a camp for disabled children despite the fact he used a wheelchair, died of the disease in Kinston, Massachusetts, on January 3, 2005.
Gonzalo Gavira - (79) Mexican sound effects wizard who worked on numerous films including “The Towering Inferno”, “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly,” and “The Exorcist,” for which he won an Oscar as part of the film’s sound team (he created the famed sound of the possessed young girl’s head revolving completely on her body), and who worked on at least 60 films in Mexico and abroad, died of blood circulation problems in Mexico City on January 9.
Sarah Jewler - (56) Managing editor of New York Magazine, whose colorful life included time spent living in a commune in the 1970's and being a drummer for New York City rock bands, whose responsibilities there included drafting the budget coordinating payments and contracts for writers, and who had worked for a number of other magazines, including Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and Manhattan Inc., died in New York City of a blood disorder, on January 5, 2005.
John F. Lawrence - (70) Journalist who spent 20 years as an editor and columnist with the LA Times and led the newspaper in creating one of the first separate business sections in a general-interest newspaper (inspiring other papers to expand and promote their financial coverage), who pushed for aggressive business reporting and helped reporters to humanize companies and report scandals, who was jailed briefly during the Watergate scandal for refusing to turn over tape recordings of a confidential interview with a government witness, and who worked for the Wall Street Journal, Fortune magazine, and the New York Stock Exchange, died of lung cancer in NYC on January 3, 2005.
Danny Sugerman - (50) Fan of the group The Doors who went from fan to the band's manager, going from, at 14, answering phones and answering the band's fan mail to keeping the Door's legacy alive after the band's demise, who co-authored the book "No One Gets Out Of Here Alive," advised Oliver Stone on the movie "The Doors," and authored the book "Appetite For Destruction: The Days Of Guns N' Roses," died of cancer in West Hollywood, California on January 5, 2005.
Humphrey Carpenter - (58) Prolific biographer of leading British and American cultural figures including J.R.R. Tolkein, W.H. Auden, and Ezra Pound, who was particularly known for his group biographies, or studies of cultural movements, including his 1978 book "The Inklings" about the British intellectual circle, who also wrote a series of nine successful children's novels featuring the adventures of a kindly wizard named Mr. Majeika, died after a long illness in Oxford, England on January 4, 2005.
Guy Davenport - (77) Award-winning author, poet and critic who was recognized nationally and internationally by educational and professional institutions for his intellectual achievements in literature, who was an English professor at the University of Kentucky for nearly 30 years and wrote a number of noted collections including "Da Vinci's Bicycle", and "The Jules Verne Steam Balloon," and who won the 1996 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation as editor and translator of 7 Greeks, died of lung cancer in Lexington, KY on January 4, 2005.
Will Eisner - (87) Revolutionary comic book artist who helped to popularize the graphic novel and taught generations of soldiers how to maintain their equipment with the "Joe Dope" series that the Army hired him to write, who addressed subjects rarely seen and often considered unthinkable in comics such as spousal abuse, tax audits, and urban blight, and who created a weekly newspaper supplement entitled "The Spirit", which at its height had a circulation of 5 million in 20 Sunday newspapers, died after quadruple heart bypass surgery in Lauderdale Lakes, FL on January 3, 2005.
Frank Kelly Freas - (82) Influential illustrator who produced stirring images for sci-fi and fantasy books including book covers for Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Frederik Pohl, who helped to shape the image of Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Newman during his seven years as the magazines main cover artist, who also won 11 Hugo Awards during his 50-year career and created illustrations for Harry Potter books, a 1977 Queen album cover, and NASA's 1973 official patch for the Skylab I space station, died in Los Angeles, CA on January 2, 2005.
Margaret Gardiner - (100) Writer, philanthropist and notable patron of the arts, who co-founded the ICA galleries in London and fought for numerous political causes, who developed close friendships with some of Britain's most influential artists and amassed on of the most valuable collections of 20th-century art in the country, which she ultimately donated to the people of the Orkney Islands where she visited often, died on January 2, 2005.
Steven Parrino - (46) Artist and musician who imbued abstract work in several mediums with punk nihilism, who was known for big modernist monochrome paintings, mostly black ones, violently slashed, torn, or twisted off their stretchers and was part of an artist movement called Neo-Geo, that mixed modernist abstraction with a more cynical form of Pop Art worldliness by adding references to commerce, design, music, or the movies, who had nine solo shows in NYC and showed widely in galleries and museums in Europe, where his work was more widely appreciated than in the US, was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle while driving home from a New Years Party to his home in Brooklyn, NY on January 1, 2005.
Dr. S. Paul Ehrlich Jr. - (72) Physician who served as U.S. acting Surgeon General for four years under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter and lobbied against cigarette smoking, who joined other surgeons general in demanding more stringent controls on second-hand smoke and the sale and advertising of tobacco and also appeared with other former office holders to oppose a federal policy proposed to respond to the spread of AIDS by requiring parental consent before providing contraceptives and information on birth control to minors, and who also worked to stop efforts to eliminate the Surgeon General post, died of pneumonia in Delray Beach, FL on January 6, 2005.
Dr. Maclyn McCarty (93) Genetic research pioneer whose research in the 1940s helped to demonstrate that genes are composed of DNA, paving the way for later studies by Drs. James Watson and Francis Crick that revealed DNA's double helix structure and for countless genetic studies since, died in New York City on January 2, 2005.
Alfred Freiherr von Oppenheim - (70) Head of the of the supervisory board for largest German family-owned private bank, Sal. Oppenheim Jr. & Cie (a bank that was founded in 1789 by Salomon Oppenheim), who became a partner in the bank in 1964 and took charge of the bank's shareholder and supervisory boards in 1993, died following a short illness in Cologne, Germany on January 5, 2005.
Herman Platt - (95) Past president of L.A.'s Sinai Temple and a founder of and major fund-raiser for the University of Judaism in L.A., where he and his wife endowed the Marjorie & Herman Platt Art Gallery, who was a key supporter of and fund-raiser for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the United Jewish Fund, the Jewish Home for the Aging, the City of Hope, and the UCLA Foundation, and who served as president of Platt Music Corporation, which sold pianos, appliances, and consumer electronics, from 1956 to 1984, died of natural causes in Los Angeles on January 2, 2005.
Robert Shoffner - (88) Scientist who was an expert in poultry molecular genetics, who conducted studies that would help improve poultry production and studies that looked at how bird and human embryos develop, who worked in poultry genetics at the University of Minnesota for almost 60 years and his research helped identify the number of chromosomes in chickens, how they were organized and the impact of individual chromosones on specific traits, died from complications from a fall in Minneapolis on January 1, five days after the death of his wife of 66 years.
A. Hays Town - (101) Architect who designed many Baton Rouge buildings in the latter part of the 20th Century, including Louisiana State University and Southern University, who got his start in the business drawing up plans for his parents' home at age 12, designed several churches and government buildings and eventually became famous for his residential designs, died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on January 6, 2005.
J. N. Dixit - (68) India's National Security Adviser and the nation's pointman for peace initiatives with rival Pakistan, who was involved in negotiations with Pakistan on settling the decades-old Kashmir dispute and with China on settling a border dispute that had triggered a war in 1962 between the neighbors, who had previously been India's foreign secretary, helped to craft the Congress agenda on defense, security, and foreign policy, and was India's high commissioner to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, died after suffering a heart attack in New Delhi, India on January 3, 2005.
Ronald "Bo" Ginn - (70) Former Georgia Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives and one of south Georgia's biggest political names of the 1970s and 1980s, who made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1982 and later served time in federal prison for bank fraud, who was also a strong voice on military matters and was largely responsible for keeping Fort Stewart open despite presidential opposition, died of cancer in Augusta, GA on January 6, 2005.
Joseph Griffin - (65) Former FBI agent and winner of the FBI Medal of Valor, who became known for a career spent fighting Cleveland's organized crime figures and gave a first-hand account of his crime-fighting career in his book, "Mob Nemesis: How the FBI Crippled Organized Crime", and who, upon his retirement, noted that every major mob figure in Cleveland had been arrested and convicted, died of a bacterial infection in Chicago, IL on January 1, 2005.
Reuben Law - (106) Nevada's last surviving veteran of WWI, who shuttled wounded soldiers to a military hospital in France after almost dying en route to Europe when a flu outbreak killed more than 60 soldiers on his troop ship, who later tried to reenlist during WWII but was deemed too old and instead served on Coast Guard Auxiliary patrol boat in the Mississippi River, and who won the French Legion of Honor in 1999, died after suffering a stroke in Carson City, NV on January 1, 2005.
Hugh Lawson, 6th Lord Burnham - (73) Conservative whip and a party spokesman in the House of Lords, who was a seasoned British veteran of the Fleet Street print wars and a general manager and deputy managing director of the Daily Telegraph in the 1970s and 80s, died on January 1, 2005.
Antoine Makdessi (aka "Sheik of Syrian Intellectuals") - (91) Writer who was nicknamed the "Sheik of Syrian Intellectuals," who wrote many essays and criticisms but never published an anthology of them, who didn't like publishing his works because he felt that publishing stunts and freezes ideas, rather than allowing for free thinking, who often wrote that Syria should become a more democratic society and called for more liberal reform, died of a heart attack in Damascus on January 5, 2005.
Robert T. Matsui - (63) U.S. Congressman from California who served for 26 years in Congress and was the third ranking Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee, who spent time in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans as an infant during WWII, died in Bethesda, MD of complications from a rare disease on January 1, 2005.
William Reppy - (92) Former judge of the LA-based 2nd District Court of Appeal who was named to the appellate bench in 1968 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and continued to handle appellate cases by special appointment for years after his retirement in 1972, who was one of the first students of the new Beverly Hills High School, and whose stints as an Oxnard, CA city attorney, judge of Ventura County Superior Court, and occasional temporary justice of the state's Supreme Court earned him the nickname "Bard of the Bench, died of congestive heart failure in Montecito, CA on January 1, 2005.
Song Renqiong - (96) Veteran of the Communist party in China who became general of the China's People's Liberation Army in 1955, in 1956 was elected to the party's general committee, in 1982 became a member of the politburo and was considered by many to be one of the eight most powerful veterans of the party, died in Beijing on January 8.
Sir Nicholas Scott - (71) Politician who was the MP for Kensington and Chelsea from 1974 to 1997 and Northern Ireland Minister of State from 1981 to 1987, who was minister during the mass breakout from a Maze prison of 38 IRA terrorists and was asked by many to resign his post as a result (he did not,) and served as Minister for the Disabled,betwe en 1987 and 1994., died of Alzheimer's on January 6 in London.
John A. Speziale - (82) Chief justice of the Connecticut court system from 1977 to 1981, who served in all three branches of the state's government, who came to national recognition through a famous case he was the judge of, the case of an 18 year-old accused of murdering his mother, where Speziale voided the original guilty verdict when new evidence came to light, and who held many, many public offices, died of cancer in Torrington, Connecticut on January 3, 2005.
Makgatho Mandela - (54) Attorney and the eldest son of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who was one of four children from Mandela's first marriage and his only remaining son, died of AIDS-related complications (the epidemic has ravaged the continent of Africa, taking more than 25 million lives, with South Africa now having the highest number of AIDS cases in the world) in Johannesburg, SA on January 6, 2005.
James Porter - (33) Condemned Texas killer who used a smuggled rock to fatally beat a convicted child molester while in prison, who dropped his appeals and ordered that nothing be done to stop the first execution of the year in Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state, was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, TX on January 4, 2005.
Paul Darragh ( 51) Well-known horseman who represented Ireland 54 times in Nations Cup events; a member (along with Eddie Macken, Con Power and James Kernan) of the formidable 1977-79 triple Aga Khan-winning quartet; tutored Jordan as Princess Haya for her competition in the 2000 Sydney Olympics; died following a heart attack at his home in Tara, County Meath, Ireland, January 3, 2005.
Buddy "Buddy D" Diliberto - (73) Beloved New Orleans Saints radio commentator known for his banter with loyal fans praise and his blistering criticism of players, coaches and front-office executives, who, after a 1-15 season, encouraged fans to wear paper bags over their heads in shame (establishing the first "baghead" fans), who worked as a sportswriter for the Times-Picayune, a correspondent for Stars & Stripes during the Korean War (where he won a Purple Heart), and for two New Orleans TV stations, before later joining WWL radio in 1991, and who was named Louisiana's Sportscaster of the Year 13 times, died of an apparent heart attack in New Orleans on January 4, 2005.
Arnold Denker - (90) U.S. chess champion and author who won his first major championship at age 15 and set a world record by playing 100 opponents in 7.33 hours at the Manhattan Chess Club championship (which he won 6 times), who gave exhibitions on military bases during WWII and later spent much of his life teaching young people and working to integrate chess into the school curriculum, who was also inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and was one of only three people to be proclaimed "Dean of American Chess" by the U.S. Chess Federation, died of brain cancer in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on January 2, 2005.
Bobby Brooks Kramer - (91) Cowgirl and one of the first women to ride rodeo broncos for prize money, who was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame in 2000 and was featured in a pair of documentaries ("I_ll Ride That Horse" and "The Last Stronghold") as well as in a photo exhibit in Billings, Montana entitled "Bobby Brooks Kramer: A Montana Legend," died in Billings, MT on January 5, 2005.
Bud Poile - (80) Hockey Hall of Famer who helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup in 1947, who was the first general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers and the Vancouver Canucks, served as commissioner of the Central Hockey League and the International Hockey League, coached for 13 seasons in the Western Hockey League, and played for Chicago, Detroit, the NY Rangers, and Boston, and who was also the father of Nashville Predators general manager David Poile, died in Vancouver, BC on January 4, 2005.
Jose Manuel Perez - (40) Spanish motorcyclist, injured January 6 during the Dakar Rally in Mauritania, Africa. He died of complications from his injuries in hospital in Alicante, Spain Monday January 10, 2004.
John Sanford (Jack) - (88) First baseman for the Washington Senators in the 1940s, who spent many of his 16 seasons with Washington's farm teams, and later became a college baseball coach at North Carolina's Barton College and Elon College (where he was also a professor and chairman of the Department of Health & Physical Education), died of cardiac and respiratory arrest in Greensboro, NC on January 4, 2005.
Robert Smith - (74) Football running back known as "Texas Bob" who was on the Detroit Lions team when they won the 1953 NFL championship, who played the position of fullback and who was the forth round draft pick for Detroit before he entered the military, died in Dallas on January 5, 2005.
Frank E. Vandiver - (79) Military historian with a special interest in the Civil War who became the president of several Texas universities including Texas A&M University, the University of North Texas, and Rice University, who wrote and edited more than 20 books, including "Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing" (1977), which was a finalist for a National Book Award, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the Civil War" (1999); and "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About World War II" (2000), died of heart and lung ailments in College Station, Texas on January 5, 2005.
